>> well, i'm also worried about is, like, all the gay rights stuff, like, i'm thinking this could be another racism thing

where it's, like, the same thing, but gays and nongay, and it's just a big fight. i mean, who really cares? does it really matter? [applause] >> that's a great point, and i don't believe the government should be involved in deciding who can get married. i think that's not an appropriate role for the federal government. it's not an appropriate role for government. marriage is a private institution. it's between people in their personal lives, and i'm an orthodox christian. my wife and i don't need the government telling us we can get marrieded, and nobody else needs the government telling them they can get married. this is up to them, so i agree with you. >> watch the entire town hall with congressman amash any time at c-span.org at the video library and tonight tyke -- taking your calls in the town

hall series at recent town halls held by members of congress in the summer recess. join ugh tonight, share your experiences taking calls beginning at 7 eastern over on c-span. >> in the last two years, the left decided that the political debate is worthless. they are not going to debate policy. they are not going to debate what is the best way to solve the nation's problems. they are not going to provide evidence. they are going to label us morally deficient human beings of the debate. >> editor at large is september's "in-depth" taking comments for three hours sunday, noon, september the 1th. october 6, civil rights leader, congressman louis, november 3rd, oprah to sinatra, your questions for the biographyer kitty kelly. december 1st, feminism critic and professor, and january 5th, mark levine "in-depth," live the

first sunday of every month at noon eastern on c-span2. >> last week, the atlantic counsel had a round table discussion on press freedom in egypt. sky news an a reporter for gulf news were killed covering the government's breaking up of camps of protesters in cairo. the atlantic council's discussion is an hour and ten minutes. >> so on my leaf we have the coordinator to protect journalists, and previously worked with freedom house in washington and managed advocacy training for activists in north africa. in 2010, he co-founded the egyptian association for change, the washington based nonprofit mobilizing egyptians in the u.s. to support the opposition coalition, and he's been

involved in monitoring egyptian elections for the center in cairo, working as a freelance journalist. in 2004, honored by the center for human rights for his work in defending freedom of expression in egypt. on my right is the scholar studies who research focuses on media communication. he's the author, coauthor of several works including al jazeera, redefining modern journalism. legacy of a man's representation and mediating the arab uprising most recent publication is the on tholing, egypt in flux, essays on an unfinished revolution. you probably should have waited to finish that book, but you teach at the center of contemporary arab studies and technology program at georgetown university in washington, d.c.. we're going to ask to start, and

this is held today because there's a report on press freedom in egypt, calledded on the divide, press freedom in egypt. there are copying available. please pick one up on the way out, and you can briefly talk about the report. >> thank you very much, mirette, and thank you for the event, and for us to come along. one of the people who also helped us in writing the report, a hero to cpg, about the media environment in egypt so this report is short of con pielation of our all work on monitoring the egyptian press, since morsi took over in june 2012. we had more than 40 # different releases and commentary about press violations, about press

issues in egypt, and we conducted a mission that led by our executive director to cairo in march. who we met was more than 15 people from across the spectrum, ngos, civil society, government, to assess the perception of the president morsi, and since then, we've been planning to issue the report and original, and you know what happened then. we decided to wait a little and see if there is anything to add about the era, and that resulted in a whole chapter. you'll find that in the second carpet called "censorship," and we tried to assess different things. one of them is the legal

environment, and this is our biggest finding is that yet egypt had a revolution, several interim governments, and each of them have promised to include and introduce reforms and to the system including press environment. for so long, the journalists in egypt advocated for abolishing restrictions on journalists and on the press, and every government that came to power since mubarak said they will respond to that. they didn't. the muslim brotherhood particularly under morsi had complete opportunity to change the system there. they've drafted a process for a new constitution, and they could have produced anything they wanted to do, but on the contrary, they didn't keep the press restrictions in and

introduced others, and the constitution was approved at the end of 2012. one of our human rights counted as many as 70-something articles in egyptian penal code including the press that restricts freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and in addition to the aspects and how the government is handling critical voices, all the governments since mubarak was ousted have also fallen short in critical views. under morsi, there was a whole campaign with the media, intimidation, physical, and illegal intimation, hundreds of

cases filed against journalists accusing them of the charges, and one organization counted 600 of those cases after nine months only of president morsi's tenure, so that's, like, several times more than number of cases that were filed during mubarak's 30 years. the comparison is just huge how much the specific task, which we consider in the regem, he won the title fair and square. later on, also morsi, supporters of series of physical attacks, we've counted in the first year of the tenure, 78 attacks >> physical attacks in that preventing journalists from covering the opposition process.

they happened around the media production city which, in several cases, the muslim brotherhood and allies want us to limit and intimidate media coverage of the opposition by organizing sit-ins which seized the media city have is a hub for almost all tv stations in egypt including independent and private ones. that happened three times during the year, and it's only happened when morsi wanted to push in controversial policies. one of them was against the army, one was the constitution, making itself, and one of them was trying to crack down on media. all in all, president morsi tipped the restrictions and used more of those restrictions and

introduced knew one. the government, and over the last month, waged a campaign of censorship. it started with two finds, one of them is that several minutes after stormed the media city and physically stopped coverage of at least five stations that support president mori sinatra, and they arrested 200 people and they kept 2 # 1 of them under investigations of so-called conspiring to overturn the regime. they only had a few minutes to start that, and one of the

people i spoke to did not have the chance to speak one word before he was arrested. these investigations so far still closed. some of those who work for the stations are kept behind bars for accusation of insighting violence, and so two things here. one there's an executive administrative decision without any judicial overview or independent assessment of the content of those statement, and that violates international standards, and we try to report and review some of those, and there is a precedent, and the convention took place right after the genocide in rwanda where you see the most slang between the media and other violence taking place, and the

participants include people from the press, freedom organization, journalists, and also those representing the government position, but the way they've handled this is each a balance in which they can respect individual rights of speech and also the governments mandate of using sanctions to prevent crime, and they have said that we need a clear and specific word on what violence is and also link to changes or events on the ground and have independent verification that follows the law and interprettings the law. it shouldn't be an executive decision.

this is one of the key issues that we monitor ahead as a sign whether this intoarm government is respecting freedom of speech, and they met several promises, one made by morsi to protect freedom of speech and the press. one was delivered on, which is abolishing over using the charges on assaulting the president, limiting it only to reasonable finds, up to $5,000 a case, but there are other, of course, important recommendations, and the promises that need to be implemented including press violations, jail sentences, and we also introduced some of the accommodate at the end of the report for political parties, international communities, and

mainly to safeguard and protect the press by amendments in the constitution which is an ongoing process right now that could conclude in a few months, but also helping independent of the judiciary so they can act as an arbitrator and safeguarding the proceedings, and, also, for political parties to help and secure and protect journalists because we have a responsibility as well in addition to the government in associating the journalists' work, and the community has to keep press freedom on the agenda because it is a key sign to interpret the interim government behavior and form responses in the democratic transition. this is all and all the report that i tried to summarize as much as possible but up for questions, also, later. thank you, again. >> thank you. you actually finished way before time as well. all right.

>> first and foremost, thank you very much for the invitation, both to the atlantic council and cpj for having me here. my thoughts and reflections, i think, try to not reiterate what sherif explained, but talks about the state of journalism in egypt and how sort of the legal, structural problems, and institutional problems described thus far in terms of various authorities that have been in place in the past two years have had as far as impact when it comes to journalistic practice. now, if i were to assess the situation as far as journalism is concerned, the last two years are characteristic, are characteristically a time when reporting in egypt flourished and falters, sometimes in tandem. we've seen, of course, the tail

end or last period of the mubarak era, there was a significant uptick in an openness of the media. journalists were starting to feel far more, sort of liberated, if you will or prepared to take greater risks and be as courageous as they could be within, of course, certain parameters, as far as news organization deemed permissible, and, ofng, that culminated in the 18 days of the uprising, and then in the immediate aftermath, appeared as though the only pandora's box, the only black box was really the military as miretta explained for over 60 years. the military had fairly strong grasp as far as media's concerned, very little information about military's political role, but more importantly economic assets in the country that had ever made

its way into the newspapers or in public discussion or publicking debates. nevertheless, it didn't take long before that pandora's box openedded up. in the 18 # months of interim period, during consecutive periods of political jockeying between various groups, notably both the muslim brotherhood in alliance with various revolutionary groups that felt marginalized by the progress in the political scene, that led to clashes in the streets and the clashes in the streets provided ammunition for many of the news organizations to begin to venture into the space and critique the military. we saw the military retaliate in some respects, but to a large extent, it was important and

critical for that period to illustrate commitment to an open and free media environment in egypt. it was around that time they licensed 16 satellite stations, some of which happened to be, you know, islamist networks, and others are, you know, private networks that are now, you know, that now espouse a very fervent anti-brotherhood position, so, basically, they opened up the spectrum significantly while at the same time reinstating or bringing back the ministry of information after having promised to dissolve its entirety. it's a mixed bag in that period, but nevertheless from a journalistic stand point, at the time when morsi was elected to assume the presidency, that was the widest margin of openness for journalism in egypt.

shortly thereafter, of course, morsi was at odds politically with various groups, of course, translated into animosity from various news organizations that ascribe to a particular ideological stance or had interests that were not served by the muslim brotherhood, but more importantly as described, what happened was not a particularly open environment for the media. the media restrax of the various gains that the media had accomplishedded during that period, and probably the most important was -- or the most critical and problematic of the curtailment was the rise of the populist movement to be mobilize the at will to target news organizations to besiege the media production city and things of that sort. it's no longer the apparatus of the state that was the soul

instrument for the media, but something more complicated than that. the egyptian public, which has become with the egyptian people, a necessary tool, if you will, or figure of speech, you know, where the egyptians stand, we, the egyptian people, support morsi, or, we, the egyptian people, elected him and came out in mass to oppose him, and as a figure of speech, it was used to critique the media, and during that period, there was a struggle to really maintain some degree of professionalism within the egyptian media scene. towards the end, i would say procial shortly after the struggle over the constitution in november and december of 2012, that's when things really -- or the polarization

was so edge trenched, it was intractable, that media organizations picked a side, picked a camp, and pushed for it through and through in a manner that, of course, was bewildering for audiences that were not necessarily polarized, but more importantly, may have seemed extremely problematic for the standpoint of international journalists who were reporting on egypt at the time, that basically, you could not get two sides of the same story on the same network. you know, muslim brotherhood politicians, officials, and islamists in general were beretted 24 hours a day on private network, and on the islamist channels, the opposition could do no good in any conceivable way, criminalized, and indictment against them, itself, itself, so, basically, what was accomplished or gained journalistically speaking, in

terms of defining the characteristics and ethics and morality -- whatever moral grounding journalism as a profession happens to have in egypt was quickly wilting, but nevertheless, you know, for those who believe that there's something to be said about the value of having a partisan press, so long as it's diverse and covers a wide variety of views, some rejoyed in the possibilities, that there was, you know, the egyptian equivalent of fox news and msnbc and various other stations, but this polarization took on a far more ominous outlook immediately after the remove of morsi with, of course, examples that sherif had described, where curtailment became, again, once again, the dominion of the state. the states stepped in and said this is problematic programming.

this is in opposition to the new political circumstance that cannot continue to exist. stations off air, journalists were detained, and then we're, unfortunately, facing a circumstance now with a combination of factors that are currently underway. polarization remains, steadfast, perhaps more than ever before, almost to the extent that when you're watching egyptian television programming you switch channels, and that creates a sense of schizophrenia because on one side there's a narrative through and through, and on the other side, you see the complete polar opposite, but the two conditions, heavy handed attempt to censor information deemed problematic to the transitional governance process, and more importantly or subtly,

i should say, is process of self-censorship which is not necessarily the one that we've grown accustomed to where journalists out of free of what legal reprecautions they face and the liability of expressing views is more complicated by that. by committing themselves to a specific political camp, if they were to contradict messaging of the camp, they risk continue knewty of the transition process or the argument this is, you know, a coo that needs to be challenged in some way, so this censorship is largely, you know, opportunity self-censorship imposed by journalists, for journalists, and to create a media climate and a psychic

within the country. that comes to head with the events of last night and today, which, i think, you know, for those of you who are following egypt closely, you'll be aware -- well aware of the fact that two journalists have been killed. one of whom works for sky news, and the other who works for -- a cameraman for sky news and a reporter for gulf news, a uae based newspaper. of course, the circumstances behind their killings are not entirely clear, although, nevertheless, it at least lives up to the performance of the morsi illings. there were two killings; correct? during that period, and, of course, the arrest of numerous journalists, so in a few short weeks -- or in a couple months, the egyptian media suffered

significant setbacks, but i argue that while the setbacks that are immediately identifiable, you know, of course, the loss of life as r much as we mourn and focus on this, the gravest fall back has been a loss of any commitment to the journalistic practice as an important condition for transition to democratic governance. we're at the point now where media content precipitates a collision course. the political collision course between various parties. all this to say, really, you know, most programming on egyptian media today is compromised of opinion with spring -- sprinklings of news on either side. that's an unfortunate

circumstance. nevertheless, i think it's a product of 60 years of false messaging and false news programming and absence of, of course, historically, journalists are the most reputable and equivalent of sinned kateed columnist and if you use the word "fasi" in egypt until the beginnings of the 2000s, it would typically imply that, you know, you are a notable writer in egypt who stopped reporting back in, you know, their early 20s so at the end of the day, egyptian media was anchored on opinion content. today, we're back to the opinion content. arguably, the significant difference is the impositions are no longer from the hierarchy tiers at the top.

of course, there are -- that applies to the state media 6789 i can't imagine the state broadcasting reached a level of liberty from its own sort of structural entrenchment that you criticize military on channel 1 or nile tv openly. we have not seen -- we have not seen that happen. in fact, there's a couple circumstances in the past couple of weeks where journalists were taken off air or there seemed to be some sort of suspicious, you know, interruption of programming when something that was deemed critical of the military was aired. there's that exon, but less substantial of what i describedded earlier. there's not a proper word for it. maybe someone else has, you know, maybe there's a, you know, a term. we're in the presence here of lawrence, who has, you know, taught journalism in egypt for

years, a veteran of the region, and perhaps in the question and answer period, i can pick your brain for an appropriate word to describe self-censorship not out of fear or authority, but i think that's probably one of the most problematic aspects moving forward. end of the day, one characteristic that we need to recognize as major detriment to journalist tick practice moving forward is the crescendo of nationalism in egypt today, and it's being drummed up arguably by both sides. to serve their purposes, and even though there appeared to be two different visions and perspectives that don't communicate across to one another, this entrenchment translates not just in the broadcast media and in television, but also in the social media. social media world,

unfortunately, because they are defined by our self-selecting processes, have become two separate encampments that do not communicate to each other at all, and because, typically, news organizations and media utilize social media to amplify their own messaging, they end up helping precipitate that more or benefiting from it, so various groups don't speak to each other or across from each other anymore so there's two parallel realities so when you hear stories from egypt today, it's the muslim brotherhood are a violent terrorist organization and armed and dispersed by a professional police and security force, or that the application and security force came out and used live ammunition in mass slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands, depending on who you listen to, of people, and so this is unfortunately where we

are, so, thank you for giving me the opportunity to mention. >> thank you. on that gloriously cheerful note, we are going to open the floor to questions. if you ask a question, the best thing to do is take two questions at a time and move along. actually, we don't have that many teem. let's ask one question at a time. identify yourself, please, so we know who you are. anna? >> anna, work for cairo bureau chief from 2006 to just last year. i just remember there was a moment when after january 25th, they were trying to encourage state media of the stenographers and really there was a schizophrenic moment where there was an editorial line on the front page that didn't match page three because of the slow

pace of this. i'm wondering how far the process got along before what we see now, and what's the state of the journalism syndicate right now? i have not seen what's going on with them lately. >> would you like both of them to take this? >> sure, whomever. >> well, as we mentioned in the report and also as eluded to, there were about four months after mubarak was ousted where there was no minister of information, and i'm president of the egyptian min industry recently, since 50s, and so you can see this was a very unique time. also, in this unique time, a little bit after, there was a lot of movement in allowing more voices to appear, and a lot of morsi supporters to allow a lot

of the critics to exist, but close, looking to that, when he came into power, actually, by the time he came into power, there were a lot more voices than the others than there are right now, and there is an opportunity, and there is a need for people to hear more news about the first time and debating everything on a national level, and we've seen mushrooming of diverse opinions, and it was not until morsi came to power where in terms of number, in terms of colors, this part is to become entrenched as explaning in the two main camps. before them, you seedy verse

news, those who are closer to the military, and the military, muslim brotherhood, and those with their own channels, they were not fully aligned, and you can see a lot of spectrum happening, and in terms of the syndicate of journalists, we are in touch with them, and two of the board members have signed on to our recommendations so they will complete agreement with our findings and our positions in the rofort, and they have taken on, i think, a considerable role after ousted morsi, for example, they were in discussion with the interim president about reforms in the reel system and managed to convince the government to restructure the council and basically nominate people to be

in the new council to take on press issues including code of conduct and also managing the process, the press, the media, and interim period, so they are taking on fully by law now, the mandate that used to belong to the coup sill under mori sinatra, which is a big role to play, and they've nominated at least three of the nine or ten members who are running the council right now. >> organizationally, did they endorse the -- [inaudible] >> not organizationally. well, the current leadership of the press syndicate know that they are -- they are not like an ally force. it was a different person who used to be the head of the sipped cat who was an ally of mori sinatra and lost against

them last summer, and i think, yes, he's been not on a friendly base with morsi and allies in the government, but we've seen him defend a lot of the muslim brotherhood media and speak on their behalf. for example, he interfered and intervened to help republishing the justice policy newspaper, and he also spoke out again with the killing of one of the muslim brotherhood journalist source killed by the military in front of the guard, and he's now taking on one of the journalists in custody right now on charges of weapons possession. >> a couple small points to what was said. sherif covered most of the territory. if you follow the trajectory of

the syndicate, which i imagine you did in various periods, until the very last period of the mubarak era, that it's been really at odds with most of the administrations and governments in various periods, and during the late mubarak period, during the -- shortly after the election, and now, i think, it's a little more cautious, if you will, with regards to dealings with the military, but at the same time as trying to strike a balance. i think the journalist sipped cat is really good barometer as far as the health of the egyptian journalistic enterprise of any given moment, and right now, it's an interesting time because towards the late end of the morsi period, the journalist

sipped -- syndicate was almost fully activist against the government, and now more cautious. the other point i make with regards to the state media and the reforms within the state media and, especially newspapers and who writes what on the first page against the third page, i think to the large extent what happened is that, again, depends on who you speak to because, you know, the government of morsi accuse the state media of failing to be reigned in, if you will, or refusing to be tamed and becoming a state -- an extension of state poll sicks or refuses to be a platform for government, and most of the accusations are directed towards specific personalities, writers, editors, sub page editors on the grounds they are loyal to the former mubarak regime. upon the assent of the brotherhood that age-old

hostilities remained so they refused technology, and this may be part and parcel in reform of the actual organization to serve as a watchdog role, which would be a transformative experience for any state broadcaster or publication. on the contrary, you know, critics say, well, actually, it was during that period that some of the state media did a far better job or better job than they had previously, of course, better than the time under mubarak, and almost certainly better than the performance today. there was a window of opportunity for state media to be shuffled up, and that did happen, but the question is whose identifying it as a good thing and for what purpose? that's sort of where we're left, and then, of course, when you got sort of cataclysmic moments or like what we're going through

today, it becomes much easier to either contain or tame or bring state media into the fold to avoid, you know, inflaming the situation. i mean, right now, we got state of emergencies for a month and curfews, ect., ect., and so in a moment of heightened over securitization, there's a tendency for whatever gains made within the state media to be retracted or at least be camouflaged. >> next question? nancy. >> [inaudible] >> oh, i'm sorry. >> so as pointed out at the beginning that you watch two channels, and watching two parallel universe, and the issue now is not just ideological or

polarization things also very much in dc and other sources, but in the lack of nonpartisan space for independent objectives, they are supposed to have cash on the table for them, so i just want to ask you, where do you think can be find challenges to find resources for the groups in order to perceive themselves and be able to stand on their feet until they generate their own money, and something, like, what happened in egypt, independence, for example, an excellent media in egypt, but it closed down. >> yeah, well, the answer is more freedom and less involvement by the government and more ways to fund and allow

ngos and civil societies to own shares and tvs and media. so far, the process has not changed at all to be able to offer a channel or to be able to operate a newspaper that is some less polarization in the process, but ownership rules need to be considered, and a lot of people in ngos and civil society would like to have their voices continue to have ability to reach out either by tv stations, radio, and so on without any interference from the government. there is also the fact that journalism itself has a responsibility here to speak in one voice and unite against violations against journalists. we see, for example, that as a

syndicate of the genera syndicate plays as a civil society organization, away from government interference overview, and sitting out what are journalist tick standards are or what are the quote-on-quote code of ethics would reveal. i think it has legal, i think, aspects of it. we need to revisit the law, allow it more voices to appear without asking for a lot of fees to be put in by press organizations or by tv stations, which allows less -- which allows more people to take shares and ownership and also reduce monopolies of either parties or businessmen on the content of the media. >> i would add three points to this of the the first is extremely utopian and impractical idea which is effectively the restructuring of state media to become something akin to a public broadcaster and

public, you know, really privatizing the newspapers and magazines of which there's too many to be read, and it's a huge strain on the national budget, but nevertheless, state broadcasting, if i understand correctly, employs over 40 # ,000 people, so something, you know, something needs to give this that respect, so there's that, you know, age-old ghem -- dilemma, and then the second point is with regards to small independent media enterprises. lean, off the cuff, spontaneous, extemporaneous, creative citizen-style journalism, of course, spreading widely and a source of tremendous reliance

and the amount of footage coming out, drop of the hat, hundreds of, you know, hundreds of video circulated, and i think that's becoming a critical part of the verification and corroboration and accuracy dimension and news programming which is missing across the board. if you verify it, it's newsworthy, and that's the hope. i suppose this is one of the positive signs that from what i've seen in some polls that one of the top television is hyat, probably -- i mean, of course, it does have its own political anchors and talk show hosts, but by and large, as far as newscasts go, it is probably the most middle of the road of all

the private news organization, and since ratings are extremely high, even though they do not cater to the polarities, they don't have any of the yelling pundits that they got on other channels. they are able to steer clear of all of this and maintain high ratings compared to everyone else. it seems like there's, as far as audiences, and there is a space and inically nation of news programming if made available. it has to be, you know, this news las to be broken to all of the other broadcasters so that they realize news is what egyptians have an appetite for in addition to support political debate and yelling and shouting. there's more than just that, and, you know, they cater to the audience in that respect so if polls come out and circumstance late widely, maybe the cbcs of the world and all the other

stations begin to consider news program as a far more important product. >> if i may, a quick question. depending on the type of media, money is always an overwhelming concern. i used to run a newspaper. i can tell you it's exceptive. i mean, for someone's news, 24 pages, that's costs, just production costs of over $50,000 a month, so it's going to be difficult to keep out large business if it's print or television from online, and the other thing is the last time we had a properly independent because, you know, independent is distinct from opposition. the last time we had independent was when it was founded in 2004, and it's since given up any

pretense being an independent newspaper whatsoever so we really don't have any left. third point, and i would really like to ask you two this before moving on to the next question is do you see a role for the state media? there's 40,000 people employed, and, you know, we have two satellites, and other countries have state medias, you know, that are publicly owned or that -- so do you see a role for the state media? maybe starting with you. >> i think there is a role for state media. they are almost like the national archive of egyptian popular culture. i mean, everything that thee yat try call performances to, you know, children's shows that are, of course, very outdated, but part of the culture for many

egyptians are a product of egyptian state television. i think the key here is bringing forth young talent to really take risks from a production standpoint to do things differently. i started to see that on state radio, for instance, a lot of young people putting together interesting shows, the kind of stuff that would, you know, compete with, let's say, you know, radio, you know, radio fm programming here in the u.s., and i think that's trancelated into television. unfortunately, because of the fact that state media are typically not a fair amount of nepotism there, depends on who you know, who you don't know, and the connections, and they have been this positions for a long time, and there's little room for upward mobility for those who are of the creative -- i want to say creative

generation or those who have some sort of innovative ideas to bring to the floor. there needs to be a vision for change at the very top of state's media, and i think there's something definitely salvageable from a culture stand point. keep in mind that, you know, the last six months, there was app outright attack against egypt's cultural industries, and that, of course, created a significant backlash, more than any of us expected. we thought, oh, you know, nobody pays attention to egyptian culture, but in real estate, e -- egyptians took it to heart and led to the june 30th protest so i think the state media can provide a platform in that respect, and i would argue at least 70% of all state programming is primarily entertainment so there's more to that than just news so they can

fail and falter as far as news concern and improve the use of cultural programming and entertainment programming, then something beneficial would come through, and, of course, the revolutionary ferment that's come about over the last couple years brought to the floor young artists, young musicians, young, you know, people doing really intriguing stuff, and they are, you know, they are both vying for and thirsty for opportunity to be given a platform, and i think given both the budget and the reach of state media, it would be an advantageous venue for them. >> thank you. is it possible to have the state media main tape freedom? >> yes, without a lot of morals, you know, that we can see around the world, and many of them, i'll say in free countries, that some of them employee several

tactics, and one is reducing subsidies to the minimum. that's something, i think, is manageable in the egyptian case. we don't need that much, that many people to work in tv, the tv building. we don't need that big building. if you look at it, just, it makes you feel small, and i think this is, like, that vision that was created back in the 50s to give this image of a strong country, but this is exactly what -- why we don't need that building, and there is an attempt on doing privatization more scenario, and current government, and people within the interim government that agree, the current minister was appointed exactly to manage the

transition, and so one of the arguments that was given is when the military turned the cabinet position for the first time, said this is, someone is going to oversea the transition towards a new form of ownership, and we don't know if that's going to happen or not, but at least we were told that the new constitution amendment will create a national entity that's going to be run by an independent board and not hired by or appointed by the government, but elected from within, and they will mandate these -- this body create mechanism to make sure that the media is comparative and they are able to cover a certain percent of the investment. i think they are doing that.

we will need to see whether it's going to go through well in the upcoming few months and also if it's going to make its way to the new constitution amendment. >> given the capacity of polarization, how much of the subset is there of journalists who recognize that they are setting up a system of oppression for the themselves down the road. to answer your question, i think the words that describe the journalists who shapes their reporting. >> excellent. [laughter] >> age-old profession; right? [laughter] again, as a nonjournallist, and someone who never really practiced the profession, i can't really get into the heads

of journalists today in egypt today and how they process this. i think what's happened is it's -- it's both a game of political brinksmanship that happened in such a way so that each side believes that if they don't take a strong stance against the oppositional camp, that their there's tunnels to be free as journalists will effectively dispate, so it's sort of a counter logic, if you will. they are not afraid of the larger hedge that will, you know, that will pun ire their immediate adversaries today and come back after them later, but rather, they are concerned about the hedge of yesterday coming back to haunt them later, so right now, the amount of animosity against the muslim brotherhood and the fear of the brotherhood within a fairly substantial, you know, constituency within the journalistic profession far

outweighs the fear or -- again, i can't really seem to comprehend logic, but that outweighs the fear of the military enterprise given or despite 60 years of history that the military's had, of course, not a glowing one in relation to journalism in the media, so they are basically walking down that path. there are a few who are expressing this kind of concern, but they are by and large a very slim minority, and on the other side, of course, it's a tremendous risk to criticize among the islamist, journalistic camp, minuscule with few platforms to rely on anymore, that it's a tremendous risk to criticize the military, but they, too, are hoping to empower their own camp, that in the likelihood or in the possibility or in the hope that once there's another the muslim brotherhood or muslim government that whatever it is that morsi didn't

do to silence opposition then will do in the future. he didn't strike hard enough, you know? unfortunately, it's a catch 22 on both ends, but i -- i mean, i'm not seeing the sort of loud voices within the journalistic sort of establishment of whom there really were at least 15-20 notable figures, celebrities who egyptians came to respect over the past couple years. today, you know, hard fetched to find a single individual that you would trust and rely on their integrity through and through across these various sort of periods and eras, so, unfortunately, the end -- encampment is too deep to see what it does to the profession and likelihood of their progress and seeing through, you know, a free press a year or two years

down the line, so -- >> okay. paula? >> paula with the state department, international organizations. two quick questions. i wonder if you might speak to the state of and influence of international media, obviously; the public scandal with al jazeera, what's going on now, is it broadcasting? who listens to it? is it deemed as legitimate by either side? second, in terms of sort of positive pressure points on egyptians, and e don't mean the military, the government, but in terms of public, break this depending on which side you're speaking about, are there international voices whether the u.p., regional, countries specifics that are seen as

legitimate in the eyes of the egyptian people who could potentially, positively influence not just the media legal environment, but the rule of law, the constitution process, any areas you see potentially having positive people? >> that's a lot of difficult questions. let me just say that i think al jay sierra has -- we have to distinguish, al jazeera is the arabic language, television network geared to egypt specifically launchedded after the fall of mubarak largely because al jazeera as an organization real realized they would lose the market share of egypt once the burgeoning media environment would grow and knowing full well egyptians have a preference for egyptian programming. they said, we need a channel that has egyptians on its air,

and, you know, hundred percent 24 hours just egypt. it was a smart idea to launch the network, especially in a time when al jazeera was at a high point in egypt, but because of the overt support, not saying it was -- no caveats here, watching the last 24 # hours straight without any sleep, if you can tell, and, i mean, it's a direct feed throughout. i mean, every speaker, every personality, and anybody on stage is having a direct feed into adgesz. by and large, i think, given what's happening in egypt over the last year and a half, if you will, al jazeera's market share inside egypt has dropped so dramatically and so significantly and has lost whatever trust egyptians had in it, that i think it's

unsalvageable. the hope for al jazeera today is that those who believe in the supporters of the muslim brotherhood or oppositional to the coo or military rule or what's called the military rule now will effectively sort of shift back and say, well, al jazeera was the most trust the source in news. that's not going to happen. it hurts, by default, pretty much all other transnational news organizations broadcasting into egypt today. the few that are able to salvage reputations steered clear of the back and forth by not inviting or the spokesperson for the groups which is difficult to do when you got two sides. try to find that one analyst who will be able to tell you how to decipher this is tough. the few who gain a few points

would be bbc arabic, and a few other smaller stations, but nevertheless, again, egyptians now are completely engrossed in egyptian programming. if it's not an egyptian telling you what's going on in egypt, they will not listen. i extend that kind of to the psychic sovereignty, if you will, over egypt to the political realm as well. there's an extreme disinterest, if not animosity and hostility towards any intervention politically in terms of reconciliation, anybody talks across camps or between camps. there's a very, very strong reactionary response to that, the idea that we're egypt, we solve our own problems, don't want meddling or anyone to tell us what to do or the saudis to dictate this or the u.s. and e.u. shuttling people in and out to tell us how to treat the other. that's the atmosphere that exists in egypt today, both from the stand point of political, you know, the political

atmosphere and among audiences as well. >> i comment on media comments in cpj because it's not our role to judge content, but as much as we can we say who is involving and clerking and dispersing information in national interests or issues that interest the public, we defend, they are partisan, and this is part of the game. we don't think that pg partisan or aligned with a certain camp or the other justifies any dislike oar oppression by any government. i'd like to add to the point about credibility of international access. i think it is natural in situations what we call a divide. you can sigh with with the

actors, and they aligned themselves with many believe they align themselves with both parties of egypt, and there's no point on advice we try to share in the representation and across the board is just focus on principles, and one thing people understand and appreciate is freedom of information and access to information. this is not political, but everyone we talk to when we say that censorship is a violation

of your right to information. it's not about you choosing to listen to one party or the other, but having the authority of preventing you from possible information that you may like or dislike is, in fact, a violation, and we try to message our content around that that this is something that belongs to their tradition, their right, and it doesn't matter if some egyptians like it or others don't. it's information in a very critical time that people need to know in order to have judgment. thank you. >> we have time for one more question. >> given your knowledge of the crisis, now we have seen the media playing an social role in the 20 # 11 # resolution and

throughout the 2012-13 season and continue to be very important. do you think that the government has immediate frame work to correct these polarizedded media challenges that only takes a proceeding or does society play a role, does the civil society play, like, it seems like that is -- how effective is -- how contribute, it contributes a lot to the june 30th protest. is it perceived this way oar change from the societies to correct it? >> i think it's probably going to be, of course, any sort of regulatory process that comes from the government, one needs to look at with some degree of scrutiny to ensure that it doesn't -- it doesn't serve to restrict more than actually be permissible, but in addition to that, i think thathre is like

a natural societal immediate yom monitoring going on where news organizations are being contribute -- criticized publicly for poor performance depending on circumstance, but, unfortunately, because the public itself is deeply polarized, they are not necessarily judging it based on the kind of criteria you expect journalism valued on. you can't really necessarily trust that society will be the natural gauge to fix problems or what ails media today, but more importantly, it has to be the professionals themself, and, i mean, there's a huge role to be played for the journalist syndicate, for instance, and any other sort of collaborative organization is one organization, i think, called the national coalition for media freedom, and they released a declaration early on shortly after the toppling of mubarak, and that missiled away or became sort of -- many such initiative, and i think those initiatives if

taken seriously can really sort of move forward in such a way this allows, you know, allows journalist to place professionalism back on the agenda, that it's more important to tell the story as it is opposed to doing it in a manner that's self-serving or serving to your political camp or serving to interests of your news organization. there was a time where they were courageous enough to do so. remember, months ago or nine months ago, they put careers on the line and risked being, you know, picked out of their -- it's, unfortunately, the default nowadays in egypt, but they run the risk of losing jobs, today, i feel it's not their jobs, but existential, you know, something, you know, something that they are trying to defend

that is more complicated than that. i say initiatives from civil society to various organizations and coalitions, syndicates, collectives, reporters, groups, i mean, it has to come from within the profession itself. , a recognition that things are faltering, and there's a spiraling out of control, and it's not going to happen from society, unfortunately, and, i mean, they keep feeding that beast, and the beast gets bigger and angrier, so, unfortunately, it's -- i always leave things on a negative note, i'm sorry. [laughter] >> well, this is something mentioned in the report, but a lot of people who have been persecuted by the morsi government will not try to exert some happiness when they saw channels shut down, and they are locally supported the army censorship, and we partnered with that and tried as much as

possible to talk to them about it, and i think by the time they realize this is not as -- has been described temporary, and it's not just for a few days, and that is has been six or seven weeks, and it's still going on, so a lot of them switched sides, and speaking out, again, against the violations, and better news for who has been a target by those deviation said it's instituting a new form of mccarthyism in egyptian politics, and he started to speak out again in terms of cren corship. the trend is being reversed, and we hope it culminates later into a bigger pressure on them from military-led government to stop censorship. >> okay. thank you to the speakers, thank you to everyone who is coming. we have to wrap up because i've been informed that there's a media engagement.

thank you, all, for coming. hear for a few minutes? >> thank you for coming. the reports are here, police do, take one on the way out. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> more news coming out of egypt today. the hill newspaper writing t the white house denies it's been quietly suspended u.s. military aid to egypt saying instead they are evaluating the situation there, and the white house has decided to hold a cabinet level meeting next tuesday to talk about the 1.5 billion of aid that goes to egypt, part of the national security council's principle meeting, and secretary of state kerry expected to participate, and one official says a decision's likely to cut some elements of the economic and military support to egypt. that news from the associated

press. also, in washington today, the foundation for the defense of democracies talked about the current state of al-qaeda and affiliates including the daily beast national security correspondent who criticized president obama on handling of al-qaeda. >> with obama, this is a line i came up with. i think that president obama talks like a comparative religion professor and acts like a blackwater executive in the sense that he has really pushed a lot of the war and expanded a lot of the global war on terror, but he's done it, you know, think secret and classified operations, and there's an extraordinary document about a little irnd a year and a half, a year and quarter, and it's, like, a notification to congress, and, yes, we are doing activities in yemen, somalia, and pakistan, and nowhere else.

they are complicated partnerships and almost secret wars conducted entirely at the highest classification level. obama's done a lot of that, yet he does not talk about it and has chosen to wage the war in secret, and i would just say this. the thing about doing things under so much secrecy is that just as you expand it and not tell congress and the american people, you can also take it away and not have a debate either so, you know, there's a lot of trust right now, i think, in the executive branch, and maybe there has to be. i'm not saying i know the answer here or balance, but the way obama's approached this is he's done quite a bit in a lot of places like somalia and a lot of places, but he's not -- he made it appear the war's winding down, and he's taken credit for reports, incredible symbolism, and victories with killing bin

laden, and the question is will that then translate into ultimately winding down the secret operations that he's continued for most of the presidency so far. >> watch the entire discussion any time in its entirety at c-span.org. tonight on c-span2 in prime time at 7 p.m. eastern, q&a with crystal wright, editor of conservative black chick blog, her parents' experience with segregation, talking about that hain -- and how it inspired her tonight on "q&a," and at eight o'clock eastern, booktv with historic cases like a book by karen on chasing gideon, elusive quest for poor people's justice followed by tim o'brian talking about the book "murder at the supreme court: lethal crimes and landmark cases,," and it's wrapped up at 9:45 with "divided we fail."

.. >> people at the time just thought this was not appropriate china to have at a presidential dinner. but lucy felt like this was a way to educate visiting dignitaries from foreign

countries who maybe were not familiar. >> the encore presentation of our original series first ladies continues tonight at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span. during the program on lucy hayes, join the conversation with the head of the rutherford b. hayes center. >> the united states ranks 92nd in a row in the percentage of women in congress. according to a study by group called fairvote, the release of report yesterday at the nyu dialogue you hear from democratic pollsters. this conversation is about an hour and a half. >> so can anyone hear me okay? my name is rob richie. on executive director of the fairvote, and this is the fourth in our series of democracy next forms that we've been pleased to do with nyu dialogue.

and happy to welcome you to the iverson family auditorium here. at nyu's newest global site for this very important discussion on impact of women's representation. as you may know this is the fourth event in our series. we are posting all of the previous forums at democracy net.com. you can visit this live stream. it is also come we're being joined by c-span today. and you can see every for him that's taken place and those that will keep going in the future at democracy next.com. it's been exiling series so far. we got on the topics about our right to vote and constitution just after the voting rights act that was weakened by the supreme court. and today is a particularly important topic force because it's about something that is at the heart of our democracy which is fair representation. and i welcome you. and i also am very pleased to

have cynthia carroll take on -- she is the chair of the representation 2020, a new project and has a new report. cynthia? >> thank you, everybody, for coming. my name is cindy, and i'm on the board and also on the staff at the fairvote and i'm also the new chair of our representation 2020 project that seeks to broaden measures, to increase the number of women in elected office by acknowledging the fact is work that's being done by many groups and individuals, and also highlight three areas of structural changes that we think demand more intention to the first of those is encouraging political parties to nominate and recruit more women to run for office. the second is promoting legislative practices that advantage women as candidates

and as elected officials. and of the third is for advocating for electoral systems that allow more women to win in the first place. before joining the fairvote team i worked for many years on campaigns for state local and national offices. and through this i learned firsthand the challenges that all candidates, particularly women take in the process of being a candidate, securing a proper nomination papers and so forth. and i really learned firsthand that these stem not only from societal norms and stereotypes against women, but also from the basic structure of our voting system itself. but we'll talk more about that in a minute. representation 2020 became less and when some of us began to think about the content of the 19th amendment. and ways to celebrate the moments occasion to it didn't take long for us to realize the best way to honor a decades long struggle for suffrage was an energized push for

representation. thus, our motto was born, a century from suffrage to parity. so to that end we stopped funding, critical website, formed a leadership circle, had a six-point representation 2020 pledge, and decided to release a report also on the status of women's representation which is the subject of today's forum. and were going to release the report on the anniversary of the ratification and passage of the amendment. we're in a great time right now because sunday was the anniversary of the 93rd ratification when tennessee became the final state necessary for suffrage to be a legitimate reality for women in this country. and then on monday we celebrate women's equality day, which acknowledges that transformation where half the population would be able to join the world as suffering citizens i guess. suffer genius citizens.

[laughter] so we really are -- assess the state of women's, highlight the best practices, and have a deeper discussion of how to get more women elected in this country. so to that in we're also doing a little fun media work and we have a video that some folks have helped us put together that we will show now. >> democracy is at its best when they all have a seat at the table. but in america there's a big gap. we need more women in office. >> men hold 82% of the seats in the house of representatives. a decade ago, our nation ranked ninth 57 nations as a percentage of women in congress. today we are 92nd. out of 50 governors come just five are women. that's 10%, the same percentage as the number of women mayors in the 100 largest cities. out of more than 7000 state

legislators, fewer than one in four are women. that's barely higher than it was two decades ago. at this rate women will be underrepresented in the united states for another 500 years. a century ago in 1920, the decades long struggle for women to win the righ right to vocal e in the 19th amendment to the constitution. inspired by that struggle, representation 2020 takes on this centrist challenge for women. we must have parity for women in office. that will happen when any given election a woman is just as likely as a man to win and in any given legislature, women will be just likely told them. i founded the white house project where we train thousands of women to run for office, such work as essential but it's not enough. it's time for a new vision and new approaches. our vision is simple.

let's not settle for anything less than parity. we support the full spectrum of activity promoting election of more women with our representation 2020 pledge. representation 2020 advocates for structural solutions to the problem, partisanship rules that -- recruiting and nominating more women. legislatures should have family-friendly policies to ensure more women can serve effectively and rise to leadership. our elections need to be more inclusive. we should change rules so that we have more than one representative. states with multimember districts elect more women, and more than half of their voters today are represented by a woman. in those new districts, we see fair representation voting rules that will give everyone a better chance to elect their favorite candidate. that's democracy and that's what america is all about. let's live our vouchers. join us in celebrating a century

of suffrage with a commitment to parity. visit representation 2020.com to sign our pledge and help us make history. [applause] >> i think she did a terrific job. thank you again so much. [laughter] gave her a standing ovation. [applause] >> bravo. >> so in keeping with our goal of deepening this conversation, we have a terrific panel here today. we're so grateful that all of your here. and we're going to be talked about this report in three sections. patricia hart and andrea levien from the representation 2020 staff are going to be presenting each part of the report, and then our panelists will have a chance to respond to the specifics in those sections. so let me turn to introducing our panel.

which will be moderated by the famous marie wilson of video fame now, but she's also the founder and former president of the white house project, and organizations that advocate for women's leadership positions and ultimately for the presidency, in addition to conducting significant research on women in media, policy and business. she's got rid of take our daughters and sons to work day which started in 1993, and serves as head of the ms. foundation for women, a group dedicated to fighting for women's rights, and created the wilson leadership fund in honor of her achievements. in addition to being a renowned speaker, writer and leader in the women's rights movement, ms. wilson has the distinctive in the first woman elected to the des moines city council as a member at large in 1983. [applause] >> joining marie is laura liswood, a political strategist and one of the nations most

foremost -- on framing issues to women voters. american politics culture eight superstructures or better yet the godmother. and working women say she is arguably the most influential woman in her field. she is renowned for her groundbreaking research on single women voters in conjunction with women's voices, women vote. and this helped elect numerous theme of candidates including barbara mikulski, former arizona governor janet napolitano, blanche lincoln and so forth and so on. she also worked for the first female speaker of the house. in 2005, she and kelly and conway published what women really want, and i'm pleased to say that we invited kelly and to join us day and i think she might've been your buddy schedule conflict prevent her from attending.

and laura liswood, secretary-general of the council of women world leaders and senior advisor at goldman sachs who worked as a council to expand the understanding of leadership, establishes a network of resources for high level women leaders, and provides forums for the group to contribute input and shape the international issues important to women and society. in 1997 takeover of the white house project. or work with women presidents and prime ministers was the inspiration for the project that change the cultural message in the united states about women as leaders. from 1992-1996 as director of the women's leadership project, is what i did for global leadership contributions from women heads of state. interviewed 15 current and former women presidents and prime ministers. her latest book, the loud duck, is a business guide that uses parables and anecdotes to examine the challenges the traditional workplace diversity

effort and provides innovative strategies to create truly effective workplaces for all. also joining us when we get to the part of the discussion about the very important work of training and recruiting and supporting women candidates will be jess mcintosh hoosick indications director from emily's list. we are very glad that she is here with us today. and now it's my pleasure to introduce andrea levien, who is the report chief orchestrator extraordinaire, and she's going to provide you with instructions to the report. thanks all for being here. [applause] >> hi. i'm andrea levien and i'm a research associate and i work at representation 2020. we were compiling this report wanted to look at it into his. the first was what is the state of women's representation in the united states right now and how far away are we from parity? also look at new method and old

methods that could help improve the representation of women in government. so i think i'm going to start off by just telling how far away we are from parity. we currently ranked 92nd in the world for the percentage of women in our national legislature. 80 countries have had a woman head of state. we have not. right now there are only five women governors out of our 50 states come in 24 states have never elected a woman governor. in 1993, the year after the year of the woman, 22% of state elected executive officials, were women and we're now one percentage point higher at 23%. right after the year of the woman, about 20% of state legislation were women and now we're at 24%. right now we only have 20% women senators and 18% women congressman. so we could have a long way to go.

i think what i would like to start our panelists on is why do you think that we are at this stage the level of women's representation, over the last 20 or so years? what you think are the main things that we need to do to improve women's representation? >> so delighted that you started. the three of us have worked a lot together on this issue and have heard these facts, and, unfortunately, for many years. but i think it's very hard for all three of us, and in particular laura when she is out in the world to try to explain to people what is holding the united states back, and why do we rank so low, and why are we still in this place? because if you look, i think what most surprises me is the year of the woman became the year of our downfall. we have not increased the number of women in state legislature more than maybe a percent or two

since then. so i think i will start with you, because you've been doing research on this for so many years and know all of what's behind the stagnation of democracy. democracy. >> so it's a really, really interesting question, and i would say there are so may things we could just do an hour on this, and your report is excellent. in terms of structural features, recruitment problems. but i say that there are kind of three barriers to women. one barrier to women is that not enough run. there's some very interesting data on the party recruitment and the gender gap and that. some of the most vivid data, i think, is we did a study once of men and women in the pipeline, heads of organizations, people who were chamber of commerce

members, ivy league graduates. and 73% of the men said yes, so it has always said to me, you should run for office. and 72% of the women said no. no one has ever said to me, you should run for office. and out of that came a lot of effort. the efforts of white house project it because the beginning of the grassroots, the efforts in was listed in terms of ask the woman. but even with those, they're still a lot in our society that reinforces the ambition of every voice -- or delegate to look in the mirror and see a u.s. senator and a president. and women's nation see themselves running nonprofits are doing something that was quote unquote the more valuable than politics. the second thing i think that we have is some of the structural features and we'll talk about that i think, if i could add one to the list i would add campaign finance reform.

and it's not that women can't raise money because thanks to the efforts of emily's list and others, women can raise money. but the problem is they don't want to spend their time doing this. if they're going treatment they want to raise money for the statehouse in a neighborhood or the girls club. they don't want to raise money to run for office. and for women it's a big amount of money to spend on political office. we now dominate, women of dominant the purchase of everything. we are even 51% of technology purchases. we are the vast majority of charitable contributions, over two-thirds of genital contributions come from women. we are about a quarter of political contributions. women don't buy politics. and even when women write a check the user write the check half the size of men at the same income level. and then women candidates don't have the money network.

how many of us have sat down with a kitchen cabinet or the finance committee of men and their always high-powered lawyers come and women have the best friends and head of united way and the high school roommate there. but they don't have the money network. in fact, women have now spent in a new study that parity put out that said that the number one thing that they needed, not just training, but networking even more than turning. we know how to raise money. they just don't have a rolodex to raise it from. and then i think that there is a third factor, and that is the combination of family and running. and there is data that reveal some really astounding data in terms of men with young children and men with young children not running. in fact, when voters, a woman running a nuke see where you are, and delivering a baby while she's running, good for her, but

brave of her because when voters see a man with young children they never had any questions about what he's going to build to take care of the job and the kids. with a woman, they say who's going to take care of the kid? and they're asking us. what if he gets a crisis? who will take care of the state? and we still find that there are a lot more questions asked by women, how would i managed the family and asked by voters. and then the last thing i would say is on the one hand, voters have a great appetite for women. have an appetite for change but i think it's a very smart point, marie, that you made. was also the beginning of our decline. because women now don't represent the same amount of change they used to represent. even though we're still in paltry number, voters are what you mean? we got sarah palin, we've got hillary clinton become the going to vote for a woman just because

she's a woman. and if i had a nickel for every person who has sent in a poll, i could donate it all to charity project for free, when in our focus is to inner-city people say i'll vote for a woman if she's qualified. no one ever asks i'll vote for a man if he's qualified. and, of course, the men had done such a bang up job, you can really understand why no one questions their qualifications. so what are voters putting in that package qualified? the barbara lee foundation has done some very, very interest research on how to women over, of being both a change agent but qualified enough for the job? >> that about covers it. [laughter] laura? >> well, i think clearly some things that lend our talk about our death in what i call the headwinds and the tailwinds.

but the fact is that this double-blind issue that you're talking about, which is how women are perceived as leaders versus how men are perceived as leaders. no issue of likability versus the leadership in that a man if he shows he can serve as a leader he is considered likable but if a woman shows -- shall not be considered likable, not considered a leader. you know, i mean quotas, assertive men and vague small countries. assertive women will put your home on the telephone. you have this double-blind and i think that's been, you know, look at extensively on some issues that the report looks at in terms of gender stereotypes does with it. as you look around the world, the structural issues are critical. and that's why this project is a very important. because it's invariably a system

that you look at in other countries and why they're more women's heads of state of the, et cetera are the structural issues. clearly we have a high hurdle on that to change these into the multi-member districts, center. change goes on the unthinkable to the impossible to the inevitable. we're just trying to push this along a little bit. in addition what's also interesting for me also deal with the corporate world is that 5% women governors, there are 4% women ceos of fortune 500 companies. so the parallel is actually quite, quite proud to be doing what happens with women in business and what happens with women in the political sphere. the family issues, the worklife balance issues, a lot of research that that is a big point of the. another big point of why women don't become ceos and some governors is the networking. some of the research shows that men have broad and shallow networks and women have narrowed

and deep networks. if you're trying to raise money you need a broad network of people to raise money. in addition besides the family for the issues and the networking are the opportunity that you have the kinds leadership role in the case of the corporate world are the profit and loss, the operational role and often women don't get to those kinds of operational roles. and then finally, you know, there are the issues of the gender stereotypes that exist about who should be doing these kinds of things, and you were referencing those. i call this from my new book is called a season of soil. it's the soil is the institution elements of this thing, and then the seed is the individual elements of it. both of those are in play in these particular issues. and so i mean, can we and i think representation 2020 is really making a good effort, an excellent effort.

but can make it to some the structural issues? can we get people to understand that changing the structure's eyes are going to help change for the better, our democracies and the outcome of our democracies? as you reflected upon our outcomes don't look so good right now, so can we make that argument, you know, people change for three reasons. and three reasons only. fear, self-interest, or vision. and however we have to play these three elements to getting people to understand that if we keep going down this road, we are not going, we're going to have some disasters, or is there waa way we can actually gain frm these changes that are needed so that we do have parity. i do want to save that which happens to women in these dynamics are clear with the exact same things that happen to other historically other underrepresented groups. i think it's important t that these dynamics are not just hitting women.

they're hitting other underrepresented groups also and that also is hurting our democracy. >> so all of that history but a couple things. one is the number of seats is so important people in this country believe we are empowered, so you can't say these numbers often enough. you can't say enough of them. so just getting a report out again and saying yes what? we have made in terms of these numbers. and i know from the white house project we used to go and say we want to come in and train your women. how many are you turning? 12 a year. wait a minute. i'm not getting. because we need programs that are training balances of women. that so far behind where. i do want to say, any supper to your ad, this is what you can do. i have been doing this a while and so i have magic powers. if you have heard this presentation today and in the next 24 hours you don't call a woman that you think might be

running for office and said that about you i started this panel today, you should run. i mean, think about this. you know people who should do this. this is what you have to do to help them. if you don't do it i'd come as you i have magic. something awful will happen to you. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> that's the threat. >> moving from the thread on to the next thread, i think that probably we should get pamela to come up here. is that right? oh, patricia. excuse me. it's good when you know the names. attrition. who is also done an amazing job for this project. >> my name is patricia. patricia hart. and i just want to say that in the last several decades women have made great strides in drink political office. but there's still a long way to go. i just wanted to all about my first personal first political

experience, and i was in grade school. i was sitting on the carpet in my power ranger lie that sudan is watching the television and the president of the united states was on the television but it was bill clinton at the time. i looked at the screen and i saw a man and he had white hair and he seemed very important, that i was not fixated on that person but i was interested in the woman who was standing to his left a little bit behind him. i was fixated on her because she looked like my mother and she looked like my teacher and she looked more like me. over a decade later, when i was in college, she was running for the presidency herself. and that was hillary clinton and she got the majority company she got the most delegates of any other woman candidate has gotten for our presidential nomination to advance progress. but we still have a lot of progress to make. now, organizations are doing incredible work. they are training, recruiting and funding women candidates. they are letting -- leveling the

playing field as far as funding goes. they are making women feel that they can run for office. right now, women and men with the same credentials, women are actually half as likely as men to believe that they are very qualified to run for office. and women are twice as likely as men to see themselves as very unqualified to run for office. these are people come from the same pool. have the same credentials. that's something that we really need to change. i want to introduce somebody who has done great work on this topic, jess mcintosh, she works for emily's list and she is the communications director and she'll give you a little bit more information on this, and then we'll turn it over to our panel posed a lot of work on training and recruitment. [applause] >> thank you, guys for having me here today. it is always so exciting to be in a room full of smart and

strong women who are working on promoting women at large. my name is jess mcintosh. i'm a proud nyu grant and i am the communications director at emily's list which is the nation's largest resource women in politics. we recruit and we train and we support pro-choice democratic women of and on about. i'm going to try take off of mike parson had about the need for women to be better represented at every level of the government in both targets because will never reach parity is just one part is pulling their weight. so i'm hoping that we can have a great conversation about moving forward. one of my favorite things about working at emily's list is the way that we have approached structural problems throughout our organization's history. we've identified what seems to be the biggest obstacle in the way of having more women in office and we've attack that particular one. so historically, we started 28 years ago, in 1985 there was a single democratic woman elected to the senate in her own right.

not one. we have mtv before we had a democratic senator elected in her own right. let that sink in a little bit. were talking about recent history. 20 years ago it was hard for a woman to get taken cities for as a candidate. that meant no party support. that meant no consultants working for. that meant no money. as vicious circles were, without money one can't be considered a viable candidate. so a number of women were brought together in our founder baseman. all brought the rolodex to do all talk to their friends. they asked difference to continue to be caught capote more women in office. they figured out a solution which was they wrote the checks themselves. they're very for success was yearly with election of senator barbara mikulski who has been one of the most prominent voices of turn around and making sure that women are following her right back up the ladder, which

is exact and what we need. with a lot of good women in office doing that now. so the second thing that we identified with, we needed women with strong campaign. women have been networking since the dawn of time probably the least since the dawn of the republic. women have really only had about four years -- four years, 50, 30 can someone in there to talk to each other about how to get ahead professionally to what are best practices? what are best practices for women? what does that look like what we can talk about mentorship programs and a know that something has been discussed in this report, which is fabulous, but we needed as emily's list to be able to tell the women who are considering a run for office what they needed to be first. how can we assess their particular race because yemen is a different, forget what it's like, building a plant, men have been doing this for a really long time. there is actually a playbook that we wanted to make sure we could share it with the ladies. i think the third piece, and

this is actually representative of a lot of progress. i know we had some sad statistics out there but there are some things to be optimistic about. those things and five don't exist in the democratic women are seen as viable candidates. party committees are happy to work with them. people are happy to donate their money and a lease on our side of the aisle voters are really happy to turn out for them. so what's the problem is that not enough women are running. so we have to talk about recruitment. i love what patricia said about women being less likely to identify themselves as qualified because it allows me to talk about my favorite topic which is jennifer. she asked a group of men and women to self identify as unqualified to run for office. and among the men who self-identified as unqualified to run for office, more than half of them would still consider a run. [laughter] women's brains don't work that way. so the upside of that is that

when we run were typically really qualified and to a very good job. the downside of that is a lot of us don't ever take that first step. so what emily's list did was develop a political opportunity program which goes into communities and recruits thaddeus women who want to have been asked seven and eight and nine times already to run for office. we will find people, women, who are partners at the law firm, they're on the pda, they raise all the money for expansion of the children's hospital wing, and they teach sunday school. we say, have you considered ready for office? they say no. what if i this idea. if this were a man everybody and his father would've been telling him to run. so emily's list finds diverse members of these committee. we then train them. were talking about training thousands, not 12. this big, burly operation because it is a big, burly job. the other thing is target open

seats which is important to i know you guys are going to talk more about women are more likely to run for see when it is open and they're not challenging an incumbent. so what emily's list does is we take a hard look at what things are coming, where people want to match whenever there's an open seat there are fabulous women are stepping up to run. that's how you build a pipeline. we won't ever have more governors and less we have more speakers, the more mayors, let's were building the pipeline moving all the way up. the final piece of the puzzle is women voters themselves. so emily's list is a program called women vote where we target women voters. we researched and, we find what they want, what they're doing, what is motivating them. we can get within and we do best to make sure that they make it to the polls. if women vote, women win. this is the truth. in 2012, we saw a historic gender gap favoring democrats. there were a lot of women showing up to the polls.

they voted on behalf of women and families. 2012 turned out to be a real mandate because when it turned out to vote a voter a lot of women into office. i want to make sure that we are capitalizing on that enthusiasm, that we are continuing this conversation, that we're talking about what it means all these executive seats in 2014 we might even be hinting towards 2016 and the need for a first woman president. there's a lot of in terms of people who want to see more women in office, and i throw so many people are having that conversation so thank you for letting -- for letting me be a part of it today. [applause] >> it's hard to been one of those first women. i feel older than even though i am. [laughter] sitting in the basement and your -- it's a lot of history. and a lot of what just is in charge and what we're talking about in this report has to do with how we really look at how

the media treats women still, the stuff that goes on, that punches that ambition down. and nobody knows more about that than you. this is only if anybody were to run for office, they would cover. they would say give me three inches a day. >> that's very generous. thank you very much. i think the presentation has been fight us, and the study as well and i want to thank, and i see denise, i want to acknowledge her as well. and i think he laid it out very, very well. one thing i would say, and because kelly and is here, one thing i would add to the equation is that we often are, be careful saying it was a good year for yesterday was not a good year for republican women. and one of the challenges that we face is when you someone at

the statue of liberty is no decide not to run because of what she will face in her primary as a woman and as a moderate compared think we all lives. and so one of the things that we really really have seen is thanks to emily's list and a number of other forces, we have a lot of recruitment going on on the democratic side, still not fast enough but a lot of strategic reef group and on the democratic side. in terms of recruiting women, but we don't have enough on the republican side. where the average democratic woman will still tend to win her primary, and 59, some of between 56-59% of voters in primary on the democratic side are female. the same is not true for the republican side. and then when you talk about moderate republican women, republican women who have a republican agendas welcome your type of people having a very,

very difficult time getting out of the republican primary. and because of the deep, the tea party faction, either one of these factions have been that positive about women on the republican side. so kelly anne could hear. one thing i do think that is these will be won by republicans. we need to be sure that we all work to get women nominated and successful in those republican seats as well. to make sure that the full range of women are represented. and then that when we get our democratic women in, they have summoned to work with across the aisle. because as we know, women do tend to work together more and they do, there's a very fascinating chapter, a decline of women's leadership and the decline of women's caucuses is a report and i think it's a very

important factors that you'll have pointed out, that we need to give these women, our women, some to work with on the other side. and olympia snowe with someone that did cross the aisle and you could make those differences with. that said, i think you should come down, and i think seth, this is a very important thing, that, and it leads to the third part of this report and marie, it had to parse. it had a photo part and the cultural part. and it had a structural part, too. and had to say that i was less than enthusiastic. i thought will never get the world change. we are single-member district. so i had to come around, and there's just no way we can make the kind of progress we need to make, frankly, without structural change. we have 98% of incumbents

returning, and you don't have proportional rep sanitation, you don't have quotas within parties, and, of course, the quota is a bad word in our country, and you know, then we really have a problem. and i think probably the most important chapter in the book, because it's the place released understand how to get started is the structural chapter. that is if emily's list always identifies the most important problems, maybe today we announced the partnership on force reputation as something. it's hard to imagine how we make the kind of progress that we need to make without making some structural changes. and the decline of party that you thought might open up the system actually hasn't been good for us but it's been harder to get women nominated with the decline of parties.

we thought term limits, told against term limits. we thought term limits might help. they help with young people. they help with latino candidates. they have not helped with women are african-american candidates. in fact they have taken what it takes 25 years to build up and guesstimated it -- decimated it. explain the stagnation that state legislatures, because now every few is we have to rebuild from scratch. so i think that the next biggest problem is a structural issue. and it's a hard one, and i have some aid on that when we come to that discussion. but i will turn it over to my colleagues. >> i just want to say that one of the things that happened in an issue like this as you are bringing it in, is i want to remind you that we have tried for 200, 300 years to fix women. i mean, our work has been fixing women. if we just get women to run right. if w get enough, and that's why

she says the structural issues that we took on wher we've got e numbers of women because only numbers actually did away with gender and push people to look at agendas. but that's what i'm on this work because i think we're getting with structural issues. but one of the things i also want to remind you of is working across party. i see that as a structural issue and i just love it when gail collins in your times writes about patty murray being able to pass, you know, finally a budget. because women's work across the party. that's an issue that we are not addressing but we have to address in terms of republicans so the judge were. and i hope that you saw the picture of barbara mikulski on the front. i'm sure, i'm a new yorker. on the front of the new your times recently because she was saying to john mccain, senator mccain can please go home and read this thing so read this thing see second vote intellige. and mccain went home. ..

that is not necessarily, quoted, a quo that. it may be what they call a zipper. which is every other position, nominee, female, you know, i'm -- i was fascinated by the swedish parliament. the swedish parliament, for example, would go until 10:00 at night, 11:00. then they got to women and they

said we're leaving at 6:00. there was critical mass. they had enough women to do it. most of the men were thrilled, but, you know, it wasn't the way for men to say we want to leave at 6:00. they were thrilled when it happened. and there are data points now that are showing what happens when you get to to a critical mass of women. one of the ones that fascinates me on the corporate side is that norway mandates that 40% of corporate must be of the opposite gender. which is how the law reads. because there are so many women it means 40% women. if the other corporation doesn't get to 40% women it's delisted from the norway stock exchange. they couldn't find any women before the law. [laughter] amazing how quickly they found women after the law.

what is interesting to me, whether you agree with the mechanism or now, the research coming out of this now there is a critical mass a couple of things have happened that they observed. first of all, they observed that women read the board materials. [laughter] what can i tell you? more of the board decisions are being made within the board room, not nightclub, golf course. women ask more question which is is a social i did namic women often do. it's interesting. four, they observed member have a tendency to look at the short term impact. women have a tendency to look at the long-term impact of board decisions. diversity will tell you the best boards look at short term and long-term which is why you need the balance. men have a tendency to look at shareholder. women have a tendency to look at

the stakeholders. stakeholders are employees, environment, communities, et. cetera. again, best boards look at shareholder and stakeholder. it's interesting example what happens when you get to the controlled experience of critical mass. and so i think these are valuable for us to look at, not just particularly going down the road of affirmative mechanism but what happens when we do these kinds of things. i think in term of what she was talking about, and also, your great presentation -- where is jess? there you are. terrific presentation around the issue of ambition or how women perceive themselves or men perceive themselves. it talks about the fact that men and women have the same level of ambition. what is hard for women to exfleas ambition, you know, publicly. so in other words if women down what the ambition is it it's

different than what they say the ambition is in front of others. because of the social negative consequence you get by showing your ambition publicly. so that tells me that, you know, women have that ambition, they are just not being able to reflect on it. they develop things which are called disarming mechanism like ritual modesty and ritual -- a women will say after she's been in office for twenty years, i'm not the expert on this, but i have an idea. that is a ritual. she's of course the expert but won't get social negative consequence about being too ambitious. there are social dynamics going on that you referenced, jess, on that. in addition i think the implead issue is -- media issue is an incredibly important one and getting more

and more. the media is the largest per vaier of those. it's getting larger. it's getting larger. if any of you have seen the film "misrepresentation" that talk about that how women are represented in the media. agree that she's looking at gender roles and who is the victim, who is the perpetrator, who is the hero, et. cetera. lot of different research on that. she looked at 2,000g-rated movies and found crowd scenes which you expect to be 50% women and 50% men. 2,000 g.-rated. 18% women in crowd scene. that's unconsciously telling you who is entitled to be in the public sphere and who should be in the private sphere. it's telling you that. you know, of the top 200 movies recently released. women had 28% of the speaking

roles. when you uncover this it shouldn't be surprising to you that you have some of these kinds of social constructs that we have. but those are the kinds of things that actually need to be looked at. that's why the report itself includes this whole issue of gender stereo typing along with the importance of changes. >> before i bring back up here. one of the thing we specialized in "the white house project" is bring in different movie and bring in things that show women as leaders and use culture. because we went up and begged abc to make something and finally they made "commander in chief" we did a little bit to get it out for six weeks. it's hard to get one on there. there are more things. there are documentaries -- so we need to think about how in every community you can start a documentary film festival, you know, about women's leadership. and culture matters.

but i don't want to run because we need to get to one of the most important cards. >> thank you for your introduction on structure reform. we think there are multiple approaches to increasing the number of women in elected office. we have to deal with the pipeline and deal with getting more women reviewed and -- recruited and running for office. we need to deal with election structure. so i'll start by telling you a little story about a state called wyoming, which ranked 11th in the nation for percentage of women in the state legislature in 1993. today it's 44th. there are a lot of reasons it could have gone to the decline. one is in 1992, iowa redistricted and went an multimember district which is when multiple legislators representative one. which is what we see in the house of representatives one legislator represents one district. when you look at different states across the country,

multimember district to elect the state legislator. they tend to rank pretty well for the percentage of women in the legislator. six of them use multimember districts. so six of the tenures multimember district are in the top 11 of states, which is good. overall you find chambers that you multimember districts tend to have a 31% women. sitting in seats. and in single member district chamber it's 22%. we think there's incredibly important to discussion and also to expand to the conversation about increasing women's representation. so we're interested in incorporating multiseat district like better youth in ten different states but also using a fair voting system. we believe that people -- everyone should have satisfactory representation in government. we try to begin multiseat district with fair representation votes which are american forms of

representation. they are candidate based you vote for a candidate. political and racial minority are able to elect a candidate of choice and get more women elected. also important when discuss discussing election structure is the role political party play in recruiting women. there are a ton of studies about this you find across the board that political parties are more likely to encourage men to run than -- but women are more likely to take encouragement very seriously to run for office. you find men are more likely to be self-starters to run without running. when a party official prompts a woman she seriously considers. we are interested in looking at what countries do abroad with mechanism by political parties to get more women recruited. a lot of parties a broad have more control over who is nominate bid the party in america we use popular primary. the voters decide. political parties have a lot of

control who they recruit to run in the primaries. so we want to see is more political parties setting goals for how many women they'll recruit for open-seat election and meeting those goals. if they meet that goal potentially being rewarded for it. and lastly what we're interested in, is looking within the legislator to see what state legislate terse themselves and legislatures what practice dhais implement that would be helpful to women. you've married issues about women who in sweden were not pleased with the hours of the legislator meeting. we want legislatures to look at that too. we want them to look how any of their activity might be biased against women and also interested in looking how women can help each other. in women's caucuses and mentoring groups things like that. once women goat office they can spring board off to leadership positions and become the effective legislators they have absolute potential to be. so i would love our panelists to talk a bit how they see

electorial structure in increasing women's -- and how they think it might be apply to american government. >> i want to say to andrea and patricia hart are amazing women. it's a radical reform. i would appreciate -- [applause] really well done and well presented. now we are down to the things that i think could make an enormous difference. this is really a piece of history we are here discussing. very few people in this country are talking about structure changes. this is a conversation that could change finally our democracy. i'm not talking about changes wm or men i'm talking about changing our democracy to being a real democracy. i'll start with, again, you in terms of -- >> i think [inaudible] >> honestly. >> yeah. i should start with you. we should start with laura. >> internationally. >> i'm --

[inaudible] ritual mitigation. >> ritual mitigation. >> modification. >> i'm not the expert. >> no, no. not at all. >> wait a minute! [laughter] >> yeah. >> this is what we are trying to fix. >> right. >> actually. well -- yeah. >> we have fun. we are trying to get structure changes. i have been outrageous about would we call it quota. would you feel better? [laughter] there has to be something that moves this. and the -- >> yeah. there dpefnlt -- definitely has to be change here. the current structure we have in place seem to be moving further and further away for women and other groups. in addition, the whole issue -- we haven't talked about nor do i think we will get to it but voter access and the voter id laws. will certainly have a chilling

effect on historical representative groups. and so, you know, all of these things we're hitting us in the wrong direction. then the real question becomes what will be the leverage point for us. in other countries, these leverage points have occurred. where people say it's not working for us. we need change the system, and often you will find with the women in state and government -- currently there are 48 living women presidents and prime ministers current and former, and most of them are in systems that are structured differently. they're what we call proportional representativation or parliament systems. our system is unfriendly to historically out of power groups to get in. fifty plus one winner take all system it's harder to get coalition with 30% vote and getting to coalition with other groups. aye not sure we get that far, but i think it's helpful to look

at what other countries are doing to get idea around the kind of thing. in addition, there are some fundamental elements. i think -- was talking about the fact that what is one of the major impact for women wanting to run is the average distance from the legislative place, you know, which has -- i was reminded when i interviewed margaret thatcher, who is not much of a feminist. she told me that, you know, for women it would be harder to run for office when they were younger because they would want to be taking care of their children and wouldn't be running for office. not realizing she justin bedded a discrimination because the parliament system is seniority base as most systems here. she embedded in. she had twin which she thought was quite inefficient in term of her approach to this. [laughter]

but other leaders mary robinson, the first woman president of ireland came to a position because it was a one, two, three voting system they have in place. so, you know, i think that we are absolutely -- i think fair vote, representation 20/20 people working on it are spot on right to look at the structure issues. i don't think we can disregard the other dynamic going on. particularly around the issue what parties can do and the pressure put on parties and the women's caucuses or the caucuses that support. if someone is telling you what the unwritten rules are, you know, as you come to office and someone is not telling someone else what the unwritten rules are. the person who get the unwritten rules are likely to be more effective as a legislator. unfortunately, the people who tell the other people the unwritten people are like to like. if you're like me, i'm likely to tell you. if you're not like me, i'm not likely to tell you the kinds of

things. why should we be surprised if the not-like don't do well in the system. i think we're also seeing it here in the corporate world we're seeing that, for example, for women it's not an intake problem anymore. women are coming in to the corporate system at the qie height percentage. it's an upgrade problem. can't get them up. and i think we see some of the same dynamic here. >> yeah. i think that's true. i think you have more women trying to get up in the corporate world than we have trying to get in politics. back to the numbers piece. it's more discouraging. >> i would say a couple of things. first of all, this is the one area -- we have done some testing on this. i think there needs to be more explanation and exploration of it. but voters have learned kind of some basic principles. they know, you know, majority rules, they know one person, one vote. and they know the presidential

system, and they believe that the system this is the american system. nothing can be better. and even when we post some arguments for change like this will allow more representation, and different kind of ways of being heard, people are like, no, no, no. we don't want that. and that -- [coughing] excuse me. backwards even trying to defend the existing statement. the system is the best system. it's also a very interesting time to have this kind of conversation because it's in some ways the best of times and some ways the worst of times. in one way it's the worst of times because people think america is on the decline generally. we're going to have the best voting system no matter what. we are not -- we tested messages around, voter id and some of these bad reforms that are going on, and we tested, you know, we don't have the best democracy in the world. we need to live up to it. people said no, we don't have

the best economy in the world. it we don't have the best anything in the world. we going to maintain the best democracy in the world. we're going insist we have the best democracy no matter how many facts you share with us. people are very tied to the american system because they think that we're in decline on so many other things. we're going to hold on to this. the second piece, though, that is interesting people think the system is really not working. the distrust and dysfunction in our system is at the all-time high. i think it's a very interesting question can we channel that dysfunction and that distrust and dislike for what is going on to a different community-based conversation? and i wonder if there isn't -- i think it's interesting to be an academic. academics across the country standard a different conversation going about what kind of system we have. what kind of system that would

serve us best. certainly the right has done that. the conservative forces have done that. they prompted a conversation about voter id. many people will tell you in most states there isn't much of a fraud problem. it's a solution. this is the garbage can model of policy making. it's solution looking for a problem. people decide what they wanted in the system, and then latched on to other dialogues to make it happen. the second thing i think, is that we ought to start a conversation with young people. i mean, people in our education systems really do talk about they really do learn some core values, and now they don't learn very much about the third branch of government. the judiciary system taught people can't wait to get out of school. and kelly ann once researched found more people that snap, crackle, pop than the three justices on the supreme court. but that said, people --

kids are learning throughout the system what if we went to social studies teachers and the early educators and said our girls and boys clubs, and said let's try some different dialogue and representation, let's try voting. let's see if we can get a conversation going among young people and the different kind of system and approaches here. in terms of the best way to get things represented. the third thing, i think, is i think the -- there are two structure features that i would love to have added to the report. some of you get funded for the second chapter of the report. the first is campaign finance, which i already mentioned. the second one is the culture will there's no greater expert on this than marie. if we are going change this investigation, -- conversation it's the culture change that happens faster than the political change. i think all of thises a the

white house project. i'll never forget talking with marie about the presidential -- and said how can the head of news talk about the presidential bar bee. if the the average girl has 13 bashar al-assad and got presidential dolls and girl scout patch to run for president. and we need to think as a structure feature about how to change the culture conversation. i love the fact that you said mtv came before a woman senator. maybe if mtv was talking about a woman senator we would have had one faster. so thinking about where we talk about the culture conversation as a structure feature. >> i agree. >> and certainly the -- conservatives are very aware of it. then you have the progressives are less used to actually thinking about how do we use culture?

and now where there are so many channels and so much social media and so many movies, documentaries, independent films that can access the cultural channel easier now than we used to be able to do. we don't have a vie -- we have lifetime and o but we don't have the women's networks nearly what we would like them to be. women dominate the early today programs but i'm sure if we went -- if you went and saidlet talk about hillary clinton for the president. let's said talk about proportional representativation? what are. -- are you sure that's legal? is that pornography? think about how we have a cultural conversation. i would love to see the next report and think about and particularly in the hands of young women they're going to promote the cultural conversation anybody can. >> i completely agree.

it will change, i mean, cultural comes first. it reaches people here and where they're afraid. this is probably what they're afraid of. it i'm going to bring cynthia. they have been working on this for a long time, actually. the time really has come. it's not one of those things that is easy and popular which is why it's great to get in popular culture. there's all the things we talk about fueling women's ambition and getting women to run, et. cetera. all of these things that have been hard for us can be solved. it we don't change the structure, if we don't do what actually fair vote is talking about doing. we will never get there. because there's no way without changing the structure that this will happen. and so i'm glad cynthia is coming up. i think we should applaud them actually for being pioneers.

because this is one of the things that later people will say, oh my god, who were the people? [laughter] [applause] >> okay. and all of you and us turns out here together. thank you so much. fabulous panel, and i am assuming some people in the fabulous add -- audience will have good questions for them. in closing, a little bit about representation 2020. i want to reaffirm how important it is to talk about all partisan reform, and how leveling the playing field and election system means that everybody has access to have representation in proportion to their share of the elect rate. we are glad that she was able to speak on behalf of kelly ann conway. the g.o.p. friend and comrade, and we're looking to engaging with people from all parts of

the spectrum of political thought. obviously, it's a wide spectrum. it's not just one aisle that celebrates a and b. there are many part of the spectrum. glad for the conversation. i wanted to mention we are glad for the important work of many organizations, andrea and patricia drew on great research done by key academic in their field, key organizations, but perhaps the single most important source of our report is the center for american and women in politics. our hats off to them for collecting this data. [applause] year after year, compiling statistics on women in elected office, and in multiseat districts in this country and what we are hoping to do is elevate the conversation so that all of the great work being done gets more attention from the morning show perhaps will have a segment on prono more

proportionate representation. we'll put that on the agenda. i'll start this ten or fifteen minute question period with a question to our panelists. which is, what reform would you look for in the coming year as we count down to the centennial of suffrage in 2020? we're hoping to start measuring our success and progress. i'm curious to know what each of you are looking for in the next year before we publish the ex-edition of our report. what can we put in there that emerges as a positive development? i think that's really hard. i'm not sure anything will change in the next year to be honest with you. a lot of -- what is hard to change them. if we think about what we can done in a year. i think perhaps what we can do is come together and i can't think of anyone besides you and marie leading this.

i think we can implement some cultural awareness in the next year. i think we could sit down and with social studies teachers, for example, and get a different community-based l. we can have schools experiment with the different kind of school election to see if the results could be different. we have a first grade class introduce this way and this way and see what difference it makes. i think maybe an educational change and maybe a culture change. sitting down with writers in hollywood and film writers that are talking about -- i think, it will be ripe if we -- my fingers are crossed if we prepare for perhaps the woman president. i think we could have a lot of cultural interest in something a little bit better than the clinton episodes to lead the way in women's representation. that boosted women's participation in 1992 did the

same thing 2010 laid ground work. we had record number of democratic republican unfortunately not republican women elected. i think in the face of republicans looking at perhaps the hillary -- i guess i'll have a woman vp they will nominate at love women. they will be afraid of that force. and losing in those numbers, and i think that -- there might be some culture things we can get going in the next year or two that wouldn't be as hard to sell jobs. the last thing i would say, the poster would say this. i think we need some serious pooling and message work on the structure we form. we know how to convince people that a woman is kved. we -- qualified. we know how to convince people to write a bigger check for women candidate. we don't know how to sell representation to the multidistrict number to the public. we have done research to know it's a tough sell.

rank order voting is something that is popular. the rest has not been. of course the poster would suggest i think we need a research project to figure out how to message to the public. >> building on that, one of the things i think we forget and reminded every time i'm with the two of you this has happened before. it's been recently there have been states that en-- there have had and they worked and some that do have and they worked. i think we need to actually talk to people about. it's not like look what the people are doing. look, it was common sense. why did we get away from this. people are really not amused about what is going on right now. >> right. >> if they see something that could make a difference in term of people who would run differently and be able to win differently. i think we should go to somebody like frank who writes on it. funny to see them talking about this is a terrible way to vote

or something. yeah. even if it was funny. we have "house of cards" get it mention -- ed on the shows. money or not. i think we can do that. i think we talked about something that has to do with caulk causes that get done. if we look whether there are caucus in the different legislator for women so women have a bigger -- voice we can get it done. >> i would definitely agree with the whole issue of awareness. we are aware but people are not. i think some testimonial from the average voter who is has voted in the rank -- >> that would be great. >> talk about this was confusing to me at first then i saw what happened. it's better -- you know, just the average voter who can appeal to others to understand that. i think that education needs -- >> yeah, and new jersey, of course, have the elections this year. we have november testimonial out

of it. >> great idea. >> we know where they -- know exactly where. they are been working all of these kinds of things. i think the awareness turns out to be -- >> great idea. >> then, there, of course, is the issue of encouraging -- , i mean, you were doing this encouraging women to run for office. maybe getting a commitment to pledge, if you will, from some of the women in the legislature to say, yes, i will identify five women. ly ask -- >> i agree with that. >> to run because, you know, one of the most important element of the whole thing is what i call the power of america. knowing as you can by who it is you see. and this was struck came home to me when i interviewed the president of iceland. she had been president for sixteen years. she told me after she was in office for eight years she was going iceland talking to the children. one of the thing she noticed for the children under eight they all thought only a woment could

-- woman could be president. the boys had to ask if they could be president of iceland. they had never seen it. they have never seen a male president. the power of the merit is essential. that ties to the cultural things that you're talking about. >> right. >> great.. yes. you need to wait for a mic. try to keep questions short so we can have as many in the few minutes as possible. there are more time to talk at the brief reception after wards. identify yourself quickly. >> [inaudible] i work in violence prevention field we have an engage boys to bring them on board in pushing it and seeing it as not a women and girls issue. what would you say for engage, men and boys to see greater ratherty as also an everybody issue and men and boys issue as

well? >> that's a great question. a couple of things we nope. first of all we know -- by the current resolve or lack thereof. if you are articulating change and the number one thing people want are legislative bodies to come together. it's one of the number one things women provide more consensus building. i think the bipartisan could be an interesting thing to try to promote too. the second thing, i think, is that men, i mean, male -- some interesting research on this. when male legislators are asked how things run with women in in the legislature they say better. they like the 6:00 hours. they like let's get down to business. the more cooperative the morelet say not just three state party positions, et. cetera.

until we find common ground. can we take the part of the bill and pass it even if we can't agree on this part of the bill or whatever it is. they also say that women bring in more representatives of the sphwept -- representative of the constituency. they will bring in more of the voice of the constituents. that's incredibly power of the. i think there's a lot that can work. then, you know, the formula -- women voters are important to the formula. the democratic formula is you have to win women more than you lose men by. the and republican formula is you can't alienate the women in 2010. that's the way they summarize it now. i think appealing to women voters and. i think both parties are going to become more active in recruiting women. and sarah palin, to her credit, she recruited women. the problem is they make it more through the democratic primary

than the republican primaries. >> yes? [inaudible] go ahead. thank you, i appreciate your observation about the president of iceland, and i think that one of the things we should be looking at is that whole idea that educational component our kids have been missing. you shouldn't have to wait until women's studies class in college to learn about women's lives. and i think -- as a former teacher, i experienced personal push back from the kids who said why can't we just do a report on a president. why can't we just do a report on -- why do we have to do a report on a woman? why can't we do a report on -- [inaudible] why do we have a to do a report on the woman. it could have been an athlete.

because they don't have the context in the lower grades, you know, you need to be sending out lists to the lower grade teachers. that's where the kids, you know, get their basic, basic on things. we need to look at the -- [inaudible conversations] you look around 99% of the statute in the d.c. area they are old, white guys, you know, we need to address that as well as the crowds in the movie and the cartoon characters that predominantly male. thank you very much. >> in the two major structure changes that have been talked about, pr and grand choice voting are instituted.

one could argue it could have a big effect on political party and create more opportunity independence and third party, which i'm strongly in favor of to emerge. i wonder if you could speak to that the role of women and leading us beyond democrats and republicans. >> yeah, that is a really good question. it's something people are very hungry for as more independent and third party. you're right, there's a lot of structurally in our forces them in. the third party have not been great about nominating women, actually. which is interesting. the green party has been the best. and the green party has been quite good in europe as well. i do think that is exactly right. it would allow for more independent and third party voices nap would probably help also increase women's participation. and people's participation. and other point of view participation. >> i think that's absolutely right. to your point, you know those

two points which is the men for -- which is a lot of people don't want to have to vote to the extremes. they want to be able to vote more in the middle more independent, if you will. but, you know, the current system is pushing us further and further to these extremes. and particularly around the primary. and so to that extend would help familiar identity that issue. you raise an interesting underlying question which is that you know what is in it for me which is what am i going to lose? >> right. part of the problem when you change that structure, you are actually potentially diminishing the power of the two major parties, and, you know, -- >> that's an important point. and the nature of the enemy. you understand where i'm coming from in term of who wins and who loses in this. >> right. and some people who lose have a

great dream of power still. i think what is interesting it would be good. check it out. there are a lot of people who -- and we need something to shake it up that has real value. >> excellent. i think we have time for one more question quick and we need to close. oh. this person in the back this their hand up for quite awhile. >> i'm been writing about women in politics for over thirty years. [applause] when you looked at data in the legislator and congress what stands out there's a party gap that developed in the last thirty years. we seem to talk about women getting to the legislature as if it were a generic problem. realistically women have been making steady progress in the democrats. the republicans peaked, flat end

out, declined in the 2000s. i'm not going to give you a lot of data. i'm sure those of you at the front of the room know what i'm talking about. and you also know that historically go back enough decades it puts the other way around. what i don't understand, why no one is willing to talk about the party gap. sort of brush over it as if it's not really there except for a minor mention. i think examining it would lead us to interesting insights because the parties are not identical either in intrinsically or the way they treat women. they have different cultures, different structure, different social basis. there's quite a bit that is different about them and understanding the party gap and how women have done in the democratic and republican party give a lot of insight. why don't we talk about it more? i want to say it's a historical figure that we have in the room

for her work. i think you're absolutely right. i think it's so hard to talk about it because it's the central conversation that is unsaid and happening right now. i'll be honest with you, we ran a progressive nonpartisan project but republican women -- i was a colleague of mary louise smith. who was a chair of the republican party. at this time there was not much difference between the party. there was some social difference. it wasn't the kind of differences we have now. but what i think -- what i think we have to start to talk about, i mean, maybe we are saying how few republican -- republican women come up and say i'm looking for a place to be. i'm looking for a place to be. and so we do have to have that conversation. i think what we don't want to do is to turn women against each other or turn against a group of

women who i think are looking -- who have a different perspective, but -- i always think there are many women in the republican party who are really, quote, not necessarily happy about this. but i think republican women have to do that work to some extent. and i think that's the hard thing to talk about it without saying who can talk with you about it. because all of us had conversations. that sounded very inarticulate. i'm sorry. it's a hard issue. does somebody else want to take it on? >> i think you said it right, which is it's a harder conversation to have as a republican party moved more right. the easier conversation to have because, i mean, you know, in my side of the aisle say michelle backman is a man in drag. i think you asked reframed it for me. i think it's a very interesting question. that is structurally let's look

at the two parties. why are, you know, people are getting out of the democratic primary and women aren't getting out of the republican primaries? why are democratic women -- why if wildly successful in -- in trouble. or nonexistent, really. so i think that center -- looking from a structure perspective on the democratic side we joke we say we come from no organized party. we're democrats. the republicans pride themselves on the organization. so, you know, is there something there in the looser structure? does that suggest something about the third party and nomination procedure, et. cetera. i think that you suggested a frame -- easier to have the conversation. i worked for the bipartisan woman campaign for my first job when i came to washington, if my first political -- there were a lot of pro-choice

republican women. we supported that. they don't exist anymore. it's really hard -- right. and they're not running for office. they don't exist as candidates. they exist but not as candidates. reframing this as a structure conversation, i think, is a really new way to have this conversation. >> that would be -- >> great point. thank you. clearly. and graduate school. remember that we have a best interest in having diverse out there. of all research shows you that the more diversity you have in both people and ideas the more likely it is you come up with the creation and creativity. right. so we all have a vested interest in ensuring that voices get heard. >> that's true. [applause] wow. [applause] thank you. [applause] here is a look at the lineup tonight on c-span2.

at 7:00 eastern crystal wright talking about her parent's experience with segregation, and how that inspired her to get involved in the political process. she was our guest recently on q & a. at 8:00 p.m. eastern booktv with a look at the u.s. supreme court and the historic cases. we start with "chasing gideon." then martin clancy and tim o'bryan. and "divided we fail." all tonight on c-span2. the last few years the left decided the political debate is worthless. they're not going debate policy. they're not going to debate what is the best way to solve the nation's problem. they're not going provide evidence. they're going label us morally deficient human beings unworthy of debate. the editor of breitbart.com

september's in-depth quest guest and take your comments for three hours. in the month ahead october 6th civil rights leader congressman john louis. your question for kitty kelly. december 1st feminism critic. yesterday's senator cruise released his birth certificate to head off questions whether

he's eligible to run. aaron blake covers national politic of the "washington post." texas republican senator ted cruise cruz. what is he saying? >> he released his birth certificate in the story in the "dallas morning news" that was posted late sunday night that talk about an issue we have been looking at for awhile which is can he run for president and serve as president. he was born in canada to a u.s.-citizens mother and cuban mother. there's never been a president foreign born like that. legal experts generally agree he can probably serve as president. it remains somewhat uncertain whether or not that's the case. >> legal experts are claiming that he is a canada citizens. beyond acknowledging that news. what is he doing in response? >> well,, you know, i think this is a roleout for him. he's tick -- sticks his tow toe to the

presidential process. he was in iowa and going to new hampshire for another event. those are two important state in the presidential process. i think it was an effort by his team to get the issue out of the way, and have this debate at the time when the heat of the campaign is not being waged when they can kind of work their way through it without the distractions involved in the campaign. >> is he officially renouncing then his canada citizenship. if he does that? how public can we expect it to to be? >> about 24-hours after the news story was published. he put out a statement saying he didn't know that he was a canadian citizens. he never sought it out. his mother said he had to go something to obtain it. if indeed he's a canadian citizenship. he'll renounce it to put the

issue behind him, and reinforce the fact that he is an american citizens and united states senator. >> will that be a public event or something done quietly? >> i doubt it will be a public event. i think they would regard get past the issue. i don't think anybody is necessarily going to doubt if he's going renounce it. it's not something that he's promoted in any way. i think he's just as happy to put it behind him. >> he could still run for president in 2016 without changing that status, and he could have dual citizenship -- am i wrong about that? >> i don't think there is anything that prevents him from running for president if he had dual citizenship. i do think it might be an impediment if people know he's a canadian citizens. i'm sure there are voters out there that would be an issue. the bigger issue and the fact that he was born in canada and whether or not that qualifies him as a natural-born citizens

under the u.s. constitution. >> is anyone drawing parallel between senator cruz and president obama? is he facing the same kind of heat of the president? >> republicans and people who have adhere to the birther movement who questioned the president's legitimacy to serve as president basically is engaging in this kind of treatment of ted cruz that denounced when it comes to president obama. the division are different. for ted cruz there's -- it's more of a legal question whether somebody born abroad can be a u.s. president. with president obama, much of the -- the reason the birther movement has been denounced by the media and other people because there was a disagreement under the underlying fact and whether or not the president was lying about being born in the united states. they both involve the eligibility for being a president, and questions about where somebody was born.

they are similar, but really the underlying issue is different in each case. >> as you mentioned. he has a political event this friday new hampshire. c-span will be covering that, by the way, should we expect to see some hubbub about the topic during the event? >> of course. you know, this has been the kind of focus of the political community at the beginning of the week. it's august recess, obviously, so there's at love focus on focus on presidential politics. ted cruz is a politician this days. he's on the fund obamacare movement which is topical. and going states like new hampshire and iowa is going to further the idea he's giving it a hard look at running for president. i think he's going to be a big part of this dialogue going forward. he's so popular among the conservative base. >> aaron blake is the national politics reporter for "the washington post. we thank you for your time. >> thank you. ♪ senator ted cruz spoke recently

at the western summit at denver. he call forked the a boll -- a abolishment for the federal health care law. he spoke for a half an hour. ♪ >> thank you so very, very much. it's terrific to be back with so many friends, so many strong conservatives here in the great state of colorado. [applause] i want to thank you for your leadership. i have to start with some somber news. because i'm sorry to tell you as a result of your being here, each of you, tomorrow morning, is going to be audited by the irs. [laughter] so i appreciate the courage of your conviction. we're facing enormous challenges, i will say this gathering is inspirational.

this gathering, what a tremendous slate of speakers you've had from scott walker to mike huckabee to alan west. i'm reminded of a time i was on an airplane, and i was paged db or a page came over the loud speaker asking for tom cruz. [laughter] and somewhat sheepishly i came to the front of the plane and said i think maybe possibly you might be looking for me. you have never seen so many disappointed flight attendants. [laughter] i will say i am humbled to be in the gathering of the terrific leaders here. people like my friend jenny beth martin. and i'm more humbled to be in a gathering of this room and satellite by arizona, online, and across the country who are standing up to take the country

back. we are witnessing something extraordinary. i want to talk briefly about the past, the present, and the future. what we're seeing is a paradigm shift. we are seeing a paradigm shift for how we're going it take the country back. how we're going restore freedom. i'll doubt quick, the answer is empowering the grassroots, the men and women across america to stand up and bring us back to our founding principles. [applause] in talking about the past, i'll tell you briefly about the campaign for u.s. senate in texas. it started in january 2011. when we started, i was at 2% in the polls. the margin of error was 3%. [laughter] and i'm not making that up. those were the real poll numbers.

we were thrilled to be at 2%. we went through a $50 million primary. most expensive primary in the whole country. outspent three to one. $35 million in nasty attack ads. mid way through my wife, i had key, after watching the ads said goodness, gracious, i didn't realize what a rotten guy you were. [laughter] we saw something incredible happen. we saw thousands upon thousands of men and women across texas come together and begin knocking on doors, making phone calls, getting on facebook and twitter and sending e-mails saying enough already. we can't keep painting painting in peal pastel. we need to take the country back. what we saw was incredible. starting from 2% despite being outspent three to one. we went on not only win the race

but win the primary by 14 importance and win the general by 16. [cheering and applause] what a tremendous testament to the power of the grassroots. throughout the campaign, the pundits all said in that senate race there was no way i could win. and i traveled the state of texas saying they're absolutely right. i can't win. it's beyond my capacity. but you. the only way we will win is if conservatives come together and demand something. that leads to the president. how do we turn things around? that paradigm shift is playing out right now in the u.s. senate, and i believe it will play out in the future for how we turn this country around. there are two things we need do, i believe, to restore this

nation. number one, stand for principle. and number two, champion growth and opportunity. [applause] let talk about standing for principle. one of the first things i was privileged to do serving in the u.s. senate was to stand side by side with my friend rand paul participating in a 13-hour filibuster on drones. [cheering and applause] now, you know, when that started at 11: 47 rand went to the senate floor, and my of colleagues viewed what he was doing as strange, curious, if not -- the first two to show up in support rand were mike lee and i. both of whom came very shortly thereafter to back him up. what happened over the next several hours was incredible. the american people became

fixated by c-span. [laughter] a phrase that does not occur naturally in the english language. my apology to our friends from c-span who are with us today. thousands upon thousand of americans began going and tweeting and standing up and saying, yes, we need to protect our liberty. it was incredible. the american people got motivated. you saw one senator after another start coming to the floor. the staff were running and saying, you know, i don't know but the twitter thing said you have to go out there. [laughter] by the end of the night, we had over 20 house members on the floor of the senate. i didn't know they knew where the senate floor was. [laughter] because the american people got engaged we saw something incredible. two things happened. number one, in 24-hours, public

opinion polls on drones moved 50 points. [applause] and number two, because the american people stood up and demanded action, the next day president obama was forced do what he refused to do for three consecutive weeks. to admit in writing that the constitution limits his ability to target u.s. citizens. [applause] that was a tremendous victory for the grassroots, and it was for things to come. the next big fight we had in washington was over guns. ..

>> but vice president joe biden said if someone is attacking your home, just go outside with a double-barreled shotgun and fired both barrels in the air. which is very, very good advice. if it so happens that you are being attacked by a flock of geese. [laughter] you know, on the subject of guns, following the horrific tragedy of newtown, president obama came out not saying let's

stand up and go after violent criminals, not saying what protect the innocent. i think that we ought to come down on them like a ton of bricks. [applause] but instead, the president said that we will use this as an excuse to go after the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. i must tell you that in washington momentum was entirely with the president on this. the conventional wisdom was this was unstoppable. i will tell you three senators signed a very simple note to harry reid said that we will filibuster any legislation that undermines the right to keep in balance. [cheers] [applause]

now, the important thing about that was not the letter where the filibuster, but that doing so slowed things down and focused attention on those who are going along with this agenda to strip our constitutional rights. what happened is the american people emerged. what happened in the next several weeks as each of you will begin getting on the phone, speaking out, calling your senator, saying that these guys are fighting for the second amendment and what is wrong with you? and that is so powerful. it is powerful when an elected elected representative gets thousands of calls saying stand up and defend our constitutional rights. the american people lit up the phones, they stood together and we saw one senator after another after another comeback. when joe biden came to the floor prepared to gavilan historic gun

control legislation, every single proposal of president obama's that would have underlined undermine that the second amendment was voted down in florida. [cheers] [applause] that was your victory. the power of the grassroots and how we win. it is how we win, getting the american people engaged. to force them to be accountable and do the right thing. going forward in the future, what we need to do? well, i would suggest one very simple thing. we need to champion growth and opportunity. my very top priority in office is restoring economic growth. growth is foundational, whether it is turning around unemployment or reining in our national debt or maintaining the strongest military in the world to protect our national security.

[cheers] [applause] without growth, we cannot accomplish any of that. and with growth each of those will be accomplished. the last four years our economy has grown on average 0.9% a year. to put that into perspective, the last period of 4% less than the average growth of the economy was 1979 and 1982. this should be the top priority for every elected official, republican or democrat. there are three sub priorities

that are critical to growth. number one is reading in the out-of-control spending in the out-of-control debt in washington. [applause] i talked about her two little girls, carolyn and katherine. i went to my hotel room, i pulled out my iphone and i begin to look at twitter. and it turned out that pollock poundstone had been watching the convention. i guess you didn't have anything better to do. and she sent a tweet. she said ted cruz just said that when his daughter was born from the national debt was $10 trillion. now what did she do?

[laughter] heidi and i laughed so hard we almost fell out of bed. but our daughter, caroline, she is five years old. in her short life, our national debt has grown over 60%. what we are doing right now, i think, is fundamentally immoral. [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] >> our parents didn't do that to us. we are giving our kids and grandkids a debt burden that they will work their entire life. not to meet the challenges of the future but to pay off the debt that their parents and grandparents were too irresponsible to live within our means. that is just wrong. the second critical element to orgrowth is on the

mental tax reform. [applause] every year we spend roughly $500 billion on tax compliance. we say that it doesn't produce a single truck or torchia. we need a dramatic simplified tax code and we have seen with the irs scandal the perils of too much power in washington is the irs has targeted citizens and has targeted those perceived to be enemies of the obama administration. when richard nixon tried to use the irs to target his political evidence, it was wrong and it was rightfully decried in a bipartisan manner. when the obama administration did the same thing, it was every bit as wrong.

you know, we have heard reports of the irs asking citizen groups to tell us the content and what books you are reading. prepare a book report on the books you are reading. another group was asked to tell us the content of your prayers. now, let me tell you that the united states government has no business whatsoever asking any american the content of our prayers. [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] now, that was an abuse of power and we need to get to the bottom of it and learn the truth. but the simplest and best solution to this problem is that

we need to abolish the irs. [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] now, listen, that is not going to be easy. there are an army of lobbyists getting exemptions from the irs tax code. not a one of them is as good. now, how many of you know this scripture in the bible? the only way we will succeed in abolishing the irs is to do the same model although we were

talking about before. if americans come together in overwhelming numbers in demand of our elected officials. stop listening to the established powers in both parties. start listening to the american people. [cheers] [applause] now, the third critical step to restoring economic growth is fundamental regulatory reform. [applause] in the last five years regulators from washington have descended upon small business and entrepreneurs like locusts. but the only problem is that unlike the locus you cannot use this as a regulator. [laughter] we need to unleash small

businesses, free americans, so that we can achieve the american dream. [applause] there is no regulatory reform that is more important than we need to repeal every single word of obamacare. [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] now, i will be honest with you. i am here asking for your help. we had a moment in time and i think that our last and best moment in time to actually defeat obamacare, you know, the house of representatives voted 41 times to repeal obamacare. i cannot tell you that how much

those were symbolic votes. we have an opportunity in the next 60 days to defund obamacare. [cheers] [applause] now, let me explain why. on september 30, the continuing resolution that funds the federal government expires. and i have publicly pledged along with marco rubio and rand paul and so many other senators, but i will not vote for any continuing resolution that funds 1 penny of obamacare. [cheers] [applause] now, this is a fight that i believe we can win. we need to either get 41 republicans and the senate to

stand strong. it will explicitly prohibit spending money on obamacare. harry reid and barack obama would scream the evil nasty republicans are trying to shut down the federal government. and that is where we need to come back and say that we have funded the federal government. we need to help the american people. [applause] the late author of obamacare, max baucus, has described it as

a huge train wreck. the president of the teamsters has said that obamacare is destroying the 40 hour workweek that is the foundation of the american middle class. [cheers] [applause] just a few weeks ago president obama made a wallace move to delay the employer mandate or big companies until after the next election. the exception, number one, if obamacare working, if the wheels were not coming off, wouldn't he wanted to kick in before the next election? now, what does that say when they are so scared of electoral accountability because of the disaster that this bill is, that they want to move it until after the american people have a chance to vote. but why is president obama wanting to give an exemption for big corporations?

and not give the same exemption for hard-working american families? [applause] >> the reason we need your help is because right now we do not have the votes and we are not even close. a lot of republicans in washington are just terrified. they are terrified of the media criticizing them end up being blamed for threatening a shutdown. but let me tell you that on january 1, exchanges kick in and the subsidies kick in. once those are kicked in, it will prove almost impossible to undo obamacare. the administration's plan is very simple. get everyone addicted to the sugar so that obamacare remains a permanent feature of our society i'm going to ask each of

you to write this down. don't fund it.com. it will help here in arizona. each of the 2000 people go to don't fund it.com and sign our petition, number two i'm going ask you to do more than that. they say stand for principle. do not vote on obamacare. that is how we win this fight.

i cannot win this fight, mike leigh cannot win this fight. no politician can win this fight. only you can win this fight. [cheers] [applause] and white is the matter so much? well, it matters because it is so foundational to opportunity. for a long time i have argued. which is that every principle we articulate, we advocate and it should focus like a laser on opportunity and on easing the economic ladder and how it impacts the least well-off among us. you know, the dirty little secret that the media will never tell you, the people who have been hurt the most by the obama law, they are the young people and hispanics and african-americans and single

moms. unemployment climbed to nearly 10%. african-american unemployment is nearly 14%. young people aged 16 to 19 years old, over 25%. when you hammer small businesses with 1.7 trillion in new taxes and massive regulations, you know, it's not the ceos that get hurt. they are the ones that have economic concerns, they are the ones that have their hours reduced. when debating obamacare a newspaper article out of oklahoma showed a single mom who's working at a fast food restaurant. she and her coworkers have the

hours forcibly reduced to 29 hours per week. with a single moms that is that i have two little kids at home. i cannot feed my kids on 29 hours a week and neither can the others. it is obamacare that is doing this to us and it is not working. we need to be championing the people climbing the economic ladder because the greatest engine of prosperity the country has ever seen is the free-market system in the united states of america. [applause] now, i am working everyday to try to help carry that free-market message. to try to help to win the argument. how many of you have cell phones on your? asking you to take out their cell phones and text the word growth to 33733. let me say that again.

text the word growth to the number 33733. we are trying to come together to stand up and fight so that we can come back to our free-market principles and our constitutional liberties. the only way we can do it visibly is if we bring to bring together millions of conservatives. just like with each of you, freedom is not some kind of abstract academic concept. it is something that we know in our own lives and in our family experiences. in my life my dad was born in cuba and he was imprisoned and tortured as a kid and almost beaten to death. he came to texas and he was 18 years old, he could not speak a word of english. he had nothing but $100 sewn into his underwear.

he doesn't advise carrying money in your underwear. he washed dishes making 50 cents an hour to pay his weight through the university of texas and he went on to start a small business to work towards the american dream and today he is a pastor in dallas. when i was a kid my dad used to say when we face faced depression in cuba, i had a place to flee to. if we lose our freedom here, where do we go? and there is no place to go. that is like each of you are here. that is why you're not offer their families relaxing. you are here because you are smart enough to say that we will not let go of this mighty nation. my dad has been my hero my whole life. but what i find inspirational is how commonplace this story is. everyone has a story just like that. we are the children of those who risked everything. who risked everything for

freedom. i would tell you in closing that i am so inspired to be with you today. we are fighting to hold onto that incredible legacy. the legacy that our parents and their parents before them gave to us. not a single man or woman in this room is content to see the world ronald reagan talked about. we're if we do not stand up, preserve our liberty, we with one they have to enter our grandchildren will ask, what was it like when america was free? that is why we are here. we are not willing to answer that question. we are not willing to go quietly into the night. i am honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with you. we are fighting to restore and preserve the shining city on the hill that is the united states

of america. thank you and god bless you. [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] >> on friday, c-span's road to the white house 2016 coverage continues with remarks by texas senator ted cruz. he will deliver the keynote hosted by the republican national party. yesterday he released his birth certificate to head off questions about whether or not he would be eligible to run. >> aaron blake covers for "the washington post." ted cruz is making news. what is he saying? >> basically ted cruz beneath his birth certificate and the dallas morning news that was posted late sunday night, he talks about an issue that we have been looking out for a little while.

which is can he run for president and serve as president? he was born in canada to a u.s. citizen mother and a cuban father. and there had never been a president that has been more like that. so many experts agree that he can probably serve as president but it remains uncertain if that is the case. >> so experts are claiming that he is a canadian citizen. beyond acknowledging that, what is he doing in response? >> you know, i think this is all part of the rollout for him. he is certainly sticking his nose into the presidential process. he was in iowa earlier this month. he is going to new hampshire on friday for another event. those are honestly two very important states in the presidential process i think this is important we get this out of the way and have this work through without this

process. >> is he working through this? >> yes, about 24 hours after the story was published, his office said that he he did not know that he was a canadian citizen and he never found that out and his mother told him that he had to do something in order to obtain. they said that if he is a canadian citizen, he will renounce his citizenship to kind of put this issue behind him and reinforce the fact that he is an american citizen and a united states senator. >> will that be a public event or something done quietly? >> i think that they would rather just pass the issue. i don't think anyone is going to doubt that he has done us. it's not something that he has laid claim to were promoted in

any way. >> so he could still run for president without changing that status or am i wrong about that? >> i don't think that there is anything that prevents him from running for president if he had dual citizenship. i do think it might be somewhat of an impediment that people know that he is also a canadian citizen. i'm sure that there are voters out there for which that would be an issue. but the bigger issue is that he was born in canada and whether or not that qualifies him as a natural born citizen under the u.s. constitution. >> is anyone drawing parallels between senator cruz and president obama when it is he facing the same as the president? >> republicans and those who have adhered to the conservancy say that basically it is engaging the same kind of

treatment that it has denounced what announced what it comes to president obama. the situations are different. with ted cruz there is not really a dispute over the underlying facts. it is more of a legal question about whether someone born abroad can be a u.s. president. the president obama a lot of the controversy is because there was a disagreement over the underlying facts and whether or not the president was lying about being born in the united states. and so far those involved, questions about where somebody was born, the underlying issue is different in each case. >> as you mentioned, he has a political event this friday that c-span will cover. should we expect to see hubbub about this topic? >> of course. this has been the focus of the political community. it is a slow news week. it is the august recess.

a lot of focus on presidential politics and ted cruz is out in the front to defund the obamacare movement which is very topical right now. you know, going to states like new hampshire and iowa will further the idea that he is giving it a hard look as president and i think he will be a big part of the dialogue going forward because he is part of the conservative base. reporter: we thank you for your time. >> here's a look at our lineup tonight on c-span2. at seven eastern, kristol right, the editor of the conservative black chick law talks about experiences with segregation and how that inspired her to get involved in the political process. she was a guest recently on "q&a." and booktv talks about supreme court cases. we start with the elusive quest for poor people's justice.

and murder of the supreme court. lethal crimes and landmark cases. sarah garland talks about divided we fail, the story about an african american community in the air of era of school this degradation. all here on c-span2. >> c-span is hosting a live show tonight taking a look at congressional town hall meetings law members on recess. he recently spoke about the data collection program, health care, and immigration. he also got a question about same-sex marriage. here's a look. >> what i'm worried about is on the right stuff. i'm thinking that this could be another racism thing.

for gays and non-gays, it's just a big fight. i mean, who really cares, does it really matter? [applause] [cheers] >> that is a great point. i don't believe the government should be involved in deciding who should get married. i don't think that is an appropriate role for the federal government or for government. marriage is a private institution between people and their personal lives and i am an orthodox christian. my wife and i do not need the government telling us that we can get married and nobody else needs the government telling them that they can get married. this is up to them. so i agree with you. >> the entire town hall is available at c-span.org. tonight, the live town hall series continues with a look at some of the recent townhall's being held during the summer recess and what some

constituents are asking. you can join us to share your experiences. like live tonight beginning at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> the international biennial of the americas festival was held in denver recently. one topic was u.s. business grows unchecked growth in latin america and a rising middle class. speakers included eric schmidt and was monitored by tina brown. this is one and a half hours. >> i'm always excited to be here in denver, which is so innovative and so vibrant at this moment in time. you know, it's one of the few places where the western mentality and international focus come together, which make it so particularly rooted in deep institutions.

it embodies the idea you can build the world you would like to live in yourself. so much of this comes from the immigrants and a long deep history going back hundreds of years. i think denver could teach washington a lot about outdated stereotypes and human potential. of course once they washington, actually mean house republicans. [cheers] [applause] so we recognize the cultural forces of the americas coming our way of moving into dramatic social change. and we hear so much about immigration when we talk about in latin america. 73 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 10 years.

they want to get it to keep pace with new expectations. latin america is going through a stunning demographic shift of a lot more working age people. historically that is the time. we need to talk about how we can maximize these opportunities and how we can collaborate. and how we can bring out a richer more saturated strength of partnership. at the same time we cannot ignore the very disturbing problems of the region. we have reached epidemic levels in violence against women is really rampant. judicial systems across the region are still in dire need of

help. we are talking about how we are dealing with the forces, some deciding the best way to open up and become global trading partners. while others are putting a protectionist barriers and try to safeguard industries, keeping parts of the economies closed to the world. the difference between these countries makes for a very interesting and unique discussion but i think we can have tonight. i would like to introduce our terrific panelists. first off, we have chairman of liberty global and we can truly say that he was capable for cable was cool. he started his career at bell

labs where he was always ahead of his time and he told me that in his most faraway gaze is actually working on video telephones. includes the board of directors and expedia and sirius xm radio. he is also one of the largest private landowners in the united states. eric schmidt is the executive chairman of google. when he joined the company in 2001, going to be a global leader in technology was at the very top of his to-do list. he served as a ceo alongside larry page 2001 until 2011 and he's also a very vigorous diplomats of the technology world and a member of technology

and a member of david cameron's advisory council. in 2,088,000,000 americans were online and that has ballooned to 29 million regular users. so perhaps we could hear what he has to say about what this change will do to our world. finally, the former mexican ambassador to the united states. it makes him the longest-serving ambassador and he saw enormous change between making america a descending economically challenged power in the americas are exploding and he has seen this culture directory take place. he has now followed the brookings institute and a global consulting firm based in washington. he is also kind of a justin

bieber of the embassy. [laughter] use the first ambassador to tweet in an official capacity and he now has over 100,000 followers on twitter. so good evening, everyone and let's get going. [applause] [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] >> let's start with you, eric schmidt you have turned this into a verb and look in your view of the things of reinvention.

>> thank you, tina. we arrived at the cost to talk about whether this is knowledge-based. which make you just so much smarter. we have wandered round with you, with your permission we have made made suggestions for fun things and this includes businesses and they will keep you connected. so the advent of the mobile device in the platform means the transition to the knowledge of

the economy is fundamental. from my perspective, that then starts the real changes. new ways of getting around, all of those sorts of things. enormous changes in medicine. the diagnostics, pop a pill, called the doctor, tell the doctor what's wrong, and the doctor will call you back. all of these systems are ready now for prime time. and we will use them. because it will make our lives easier and smarter and faster. american innovation engine, capital funding model that has built is the best in the world and it will continue to produce innovations at this rate or faster. >> may be almost too fast i sometimes worry that some of these things he talked about can

be dehumanizing and segregating. because all of this technology pushes people apart as much as it brings them together. >> i disagree a little bit. i would offer that if you have a teenager, if they are awake, they are online. if they wake up, they more communicative, more connected, and we could ever have imagined. such a hive of knowledge and friendship and it will propel it far faster than the next-generation. >> you must be fascinated to see the extraordinary acceleration of some of these technologies that eric is talking about. where do you see our world moving with such a highly high

velocity of technological change? >> it seems that these technologies are cumulative. and i think that once we have got into a world of standards where the skill was large enough so that the invention could be propagated in massive scales, the acceleration of the pace just took off. it seemed to me everything they taught me was completely obsolete tenures after school. what you actually learn in terms of the technologies are pretty obviously quick. what they teach you in school is to learn how to learn if it is a good school. and how to adapt. so the technologies that we are talking about today are really the evolution of local bunch of

parallels in parallel inventions and things that are combined into the kind of advice that eric was pointing to and it just seems like it open so many doors. doors for innovation and community. from an invention point of view, you know, the combination that they have out there so it's pretty neat in terms of human and financial capital and entrepreneurship that has kind of created this situation for america. but it is spreading. >> the opportunity is now being presented in the americas. what do you feel is a great

investor and businessman, what opportunities do you see in these regions that we could be exploding now? >> we try to anticipate the demand for implementation of these technologies. of course, it varies geographically around the world. the power of these electronic technologies is that they are and there really is a standard that can be invented. once the services are offered, they are available to east half the planet, the other half to develop an economic base to participate, which is a big challenge, by the way. but the scale has never been seen before. this is why many as seemed to

emerge from nowhere because they are playing such a large portion. >> ambassador, you said that there was a time when we saw the demographic shift surging with the americas. tell me about your point of view about that and what you have absolved from it what we can learn using this right now? >> let me indicate that i am grateful to be back here. i am delighted to be the monkey to his organ grinding, i'm very happy to be back and i think that as you look at the america south of this, technology has

become a leveler and it has helped the reinvention of communities and understanding them as the attraction between citizens and public policies. technology has provided a lot of societies. we have seen this expanding middle class via technology and it is finding new pioneering ways of impacting the way decision-making occurs in a society. there is one very important trend that i think has happened in the southern part of the hemisphere, which is a bit contrary to where the middle class has been under strain and where they are being atomized in countries like mexico and brazil and chile and peru and colombia. it is combined with economic

growth, but also shifting demographics, so there is a fundamental tectonic shift, it will change the traditional ways in which more than south have contracted on everything from how do we educate our kids to what do policies look like and how do we ensure that many are made responsive to citizens, which is a common denominator across the americas. the tea party, occupy wall street, those are two extremes. but you also have seen it and brazil and you have seen it where a student demands this and you've seen it in mexico. you've seen in other countries around the world. how do we take into account new demands for society and technology. i think that it is a common thread that brings us all together. >> what is interesting, of course is that it is ironic that

as the middle class, as it explodes, so does the social unrest. it's only when you have the time to protect us and glimpse a better future, they start to become discontented. so much of these big technological changes are leading to a skewed prosperity because we have seen such a concentration of wealth in small pockets across the country as well. >> well, i think most people sort of know very well that the poorest region in the world the

challenge for how we reinvent us and how we reinvent communities is how to ensure that people not be left behind. how to make sure that from the most humble shoe shiner in the main plaza of any town or city in latin america, the most important is middle democracy delivering the goods. there is a chance to consider continued prosperity. this is such a vexing challenge and it will be there to remain there. i think things have improved dramatically simply because of this huge change that i was referring to in some latin american countries. but it will still be allowed an american problem. >> was so surprising and talking to you, it seems as though the last three administrations have been with programs like the cash transfer programs where we are given money to kick up the notch

of the schools. >> it is ensuring that personal this is a conditional program in which the money is given to the female head of household and not the end of that. >> that is truly critical. >> it is conditional on to things happening. >> he has to go with the kids to get their medical examinations and their vaccines and they have to be enrolled with passing grades. if any of those two variables are not met, this is withheld. the guidance of their party those long two is now in mexico and i think that these programs can work to a point where mike bloomberg went on to mexico

about two years ago to look at the program and see how some of these issues could be tongue-in-cheek tropical ice and rock of brooklyn and queens and staten island to generate that and create entrepreneurship in a sense of society. this brings us all to very important facts, which is the role of cities. i think it's very fitting that we are in denver, a city that has been reinvented and reinvent the itself. because cities have become the new hubs of innovation of enlightened public policy. when you see gridlock in washington, it is the mayors that are reinventing public policy. that is where it's happening. it's happening in places like mexico city. so there's a very interesting connection where the cities become the new hubs of cultural

diversity and mentality. >> you are famously a strong libertarian. have you feel about the kind of government intervention with things like cash transfers and trying to create a social policy that in a sense does keep pace? >> i am a libertarian. but i'm also pragmatic. it works, great, do it. the issue is there are so many programs that don't work. and it becomes burdensome and never goes away. he can let his is what is referred to as governmental overhead. but clearly as the audience indicated, it is all about education. but these technologies can be used to upgrade the

effectiveness and efficiency of education and the quality of education and the affordability of education, and it's not just educational facts, it's educational culture. the civil understanding of why societies function. why a democracy is a pretty practical way for civilization to be conducted. it seems like to me that that is the core benefit to lifting up the entire human race. as eric pointed out, technology does have a tendency to create massive distributions of wealth disparities and we are

speculating what the impact is and how you deal about in a society. well, america has never been really a mission that created dynastic families or a tax system that didn't encourage that. in fact we are encouraged to be philanthropic goal is successful. and i think about it is a good thing. so the combination reinvesting in a society when this massive wealth effects take place. i think that they are driven by the scale. >> the thing is that it doesn't always work. america has this fantastic tradition coming from the uk. it was the thing that i found most exciting it was one of the things that i thought was wonderful, the most generosity.

in countries in latin america, people are not really at a point where america is not all where they give away this. so i am interested. so much of the digital revolution is also causing unemployment. because the fact is that we talk about about retraining people so that they learn these new skills which require this. but let's face it, google is never going to have a 52-year-old man who has been retrained at a community college. i'm sorry, but it just will not happen. and so there is this enormous swath that there is sort of left

behind. >> i can just see the headline. i'm getting my revenge. because i am now a woman on this panel. [laughter] and then you also have an occupy wall street, huge protest, what do we do about this that is being created by this brave new world? >> let's distinguish between the developing world in the next five years. our estimate is that out of the beer ends of these smart phones, we will have the vast majority of global citizens. countries that should never have access to any kind of personal freedom, these are extraordinary devices. then it is a step that is a very big deal. that will drive a lot of what you will see.

many have decided that some will not grow for the next five years, the united states,. >> the united states, which is growing not as well as it could, each of these countries is dealing with a compounding of automation. with demographics you have older people and fewer younger people, which means fewer people will support and more people need support mathematically. with globalization it is roughly that china doesn't allow me to raise my prices and automation means that the computer took my job. that is the way to complain about it so this is shifting to

a knowledge economy. you have to have a relatively enlightened view. it is about education and conductivity and immigration and it is about including the implications of women, giving them opportunities they might not have, making it possible for them to operate at the same level. and the countries they get that right are going to grow. it can occur anywhere. we have so many examples. i suspect estonia turns out to be one of the best on earth. scandinavia, israel, a very high tech expert, has chosen to focus where it is exceptional. and this can be done in any of these countries.

>> so how is the whole immigration issue, how do you look at that from the latin american point of view? >> i think simply there is no more important structural structure of the well-being and prosperity and security of the united states. [cheers] [applause] and if the u.s. gets it right, it will have positive radiating effects across the americas. it is a very simple equation. have labor abundant emerging markets and you know how this works. there are synergies with the change in demographics. and it won't be there forever. because the demographics are changing profoundly.

so at the current rate of growth in countries like mexico or chile or brazil, became into construction in long island or vineyards in napa and sonoma. the 25 years or so, that will not be there. so how do you build a bridge the largest and probably best trained labor force coming into the market in the latin america and caribbean. what will happen in 20 or 25 years, it is about security and prosperity of our nation's. i know this is a very toxic issue for america, but immigrants are not a threat to the security of the united states. [cheers] [applause] >> but i just find that i cannot

find a reasonable opponent to this position. i just cannot find it. so let me make my case. america takes these people from around the world and educate them in the best universities in america. then kick them out to go to other countries to start companies that compete with us. taking jobs away. are you with me? am i missing something? >> are we in agreement? >> i would add to eric's point, which is absolutely valid, that it's not only about the people that he needs or john needs in their sectors, it is also about those in the central valley in california and construction companies in upstate new york. i know that we call them unskilled labor. there's a lot of skill involved. >> we call them customers.

>> the other logic that i have is that america is growing and with growth comes revenue growth, gdp, the government has infinite need for taxation. more customers, more taxpayers. what am i missing? helping? >> the reason is because there is a tremendous fear as they were releasing this week in the house that they will take american jobs. >> they are going to create jobs. >> they are creating jobs. >> well, you know, the economic data supports my position. the moral position supports my position. it is consistent with the historic strength of america which i know well. 40% of startups are done by foreign-born immigrants. certainly peaceloving people.

[applause] >> i'm waiting for the arguments against are positioned. >> so i think it doesn't always generate much controversy. you're the biggest landowner in america, or at least one of the biggest. one where the particular properties that you have found in this very rich immigrant background in terms of the history. tell me what the particular benefits are for having built your business or your fortune in this region. how does it define what you have done? >> being headquartered here for 40 years, it was a great central location for the communications

industry nationally as it developed. it also happens to be a great place because there are not as many clouds their. and so i think that it was just a great place to build a business, a great place to live. i would like to get back a little bit to the immigration issue because i think the challenge is not so much that the mexican hard-working people are going to come in and take jobs. but the americans are not trained and educated and motivated to do their jobs. jericho. [applause] >> so you know, i think that the waiver should move around just as capital showed, it should move freely to where it is most productive and efficient. i certainly echo eric.

my son was an individual who is actually cleared to work on nasa and darpa products, advanced controls. he couldn't get a green card to stay. and i asked him and he was a very bright kid. i asked him what is your best job opportunity and he said iran. [laughter] >> he said you may notice that they have problems with their missile systems. [laughter] >> this behavior is suicidal. every leading politician that you talk to agrees with that. and yet it has been so frustrating that it has been years as an issue. so hopefully they will have the guts this time to finally get it

over the finish line remap it to the point, it's almost as though it is a hopeless situation in terms of hitting the innovation done. therefore it is driving all the innovation back to the state level. >> to some degree the federal governments are caught up in all of these issues and they cannot seem to make progress. what is happening is there are quite a few groups that are working with the hispanic groups in america and the other parts of america. it makes perfectly good sense, whether from communications markets and so forth and from their perspective it is all one country, all one culture. opportunities because of telecommunications and frankly it was way back when and driving us ahead well ahead of what they

can do. the communications revolution, to the inlet revolution. the mobile devices enlightened entrepreneurs and we can actually solve this problem even if the government lacks. maybe it is okay if they lack. maybe we have always complained about governments for hundreds of years. in which case, let's make sure we don't have stupid rules and let us build this economy cross borders, using the best that we can. >> is so interesting with the evolution of twitter and social media. how people can voice their disagreement with the way that governments do business. in the same way about social media. >> so perhaps gridlock can

include social media action of this kind. and is there anything that can be done in america? i'm looking all over and in the end occupy wall street is kind of fizzled out. immigration is one of those classic examples where social media could drive a change in policies. we see that happening more and more. >> what you learn is how powerful it is. they have locked themselves in pretty far between campaign-finance donations and even drawing the borders so that they are correct and etc. it is not a perfect system. ultimately transparency does fix these problems. if you are a person where you have every reason to trust the

police, you are a woman unsure of her own safety, neighborhood, that stuff, these devices again are enormously empowered. i believe that eventually enough people will change public policy and spite of the incumbency is. >> i'm very interested that we should talk about some of the things that are happening in latin america and, you know, we just saw the arrest today of the leader of the state again, who was the hideous drug cartel criminal whose trail of terrible mayhem is just awful. it is still such a huge issue in this area in latin america. what can be done about that in

this economy? we have technology. >> i can see talking about it in a more positive light. it is probably one of the number one or number two issues of individuals throughout the region. but i think again here, despite the phenomenal challenges that some face, i am bullish as to how they can mobilize society and public opinion. we work hand-in-hand that could be sent to police so that you

could do it in a fashion, therefore your appetite saying that things could be going wrong next door, it was creating a confidence using technology. and i think i can see the ambassador to united states is saying that what happened five or six years ago but says no to the groups, saying no to the armed insurgencies. it was a very powerful and organizing tool. there are two case studies. san diego, one of, and el paso. one of the reasons why el paso is in a much tighter spot is

because civil society stay put and they became hand-in-hand with the private sector and they stayed and they stayed put and they started creating these networks of responsibility. look at what happened. the first thing that the private sector that one violence that was pack up and crossed the border and go to el paso. so there was a huge vacuum that was left when society gave up in one of the things that played a role and you didn't see it, it again it was the use of technology as an instrument of coalescing public opinion and mobilizing and ensuring that police had the municipal authorities that were doing what they had promised to do.

i think that yes, the challenge is formidable, but there is a lot of this and some of the models that we have seen have been part of this. >> they are increasing their ability to interact with one another. >> this was part of our book research that came out a few months ago. we study this at some length. >> the problem is basically security and corruption so we have worked out some ways to try to come up with systems which provide anonymous reporting that

thorough tracking. it turns out that the local citizens know who the bad guys are. if you construct an anonymous respondent, the responders are also beginning to build the matrix is brought them down so low and we are so familiar with that. but from the standpoint of financial transparency, everything is now electronic. if you want to, most of the country seems to have a problem where political leaders seem to have a lot more land and they have more than they are supposed to. well, they are recording all of

these things on layers of the earth and it is hard to move the house. you can see this stuff. so again, building a culture of transparency, building a structure where the money is traced as we can figure out where it is going. if you can get through that conversation, then we can work on these other things, which are very important. >> is a corruption that might inhibit you from investing? do you find this lack of transparency the major innovation from investing? >> it is particularly an infrastructure and those are very long investments.

so you have to invest in those that believe in private property rights, those that are not overwhelmed by corruption. you know, frankly it is very hard to contemplate an investment in a place like russia today. the system of private property and law, it really hasn't been worked out quite yet. so you can engage in this but not those that expose a lot of capital for an extended period of time. a great example has been our success in chile where we have done communications to invest in infrastructure for probably 15 years very successfully. we have really enjoyed

relationships. mexico has been a wonderful place for our direct tv business. it is increasingly a country that people are largely making capital investments and infrastructure. so mexico is actually doing very well. >> and of course you have this in families as well. >> it is great to be partners with some of these individuals. >> i think that that will change over time. this is part of the rising middle class and i think that this versus places like argentina, they began to

reinvest in their own country. there has been a tendency particularly in latin america that when you are an entrepreneur and you are successful, you want to get the capital out of the country as fast as possible. and one by one, a number of latin american countries is changing as 10 people with immense wealth who are successful are starting to reinvest in their own country. and i think that is a great trend, particularly for latin america. >> how many find this a closed system in some places? >> well, the first for me is can you borrow money to make an investment. is there a pool of capital available domestically. largely because they privatize social security and very

rationally they have built a large pool of domestic capital and the returns for the middle class citizen who has been in that system has been very attractive. they have built an investment in capitalism that makes it available primarily to local businesses and also those that want to invest in infrastructure and do not want to take the currency risk of having the investment in dollars. that has been a real problem in terms of current currency stability. the official exchange rate is about five times higher than what you can actually trade and

$2.1. so is latin america evolves and has political stability, it's very important that they keep their promise, which is the exchange ability of the currency, that they keep that open and very transparent. i think that that is a great way to boost direct foreign investment, which is important in a lot of the latin american countries. >> if you allow me sort of a tongue-in-cheek reference to what we're seeing in latin america, latin america today is a coalition of free trade. that is countries that are investing to defend our connectivity with the rest of the world and you look at canada, you look at the united states and mexico, you look at

chile and peru and colombia. these are all countries that are bound together by free-trade agreements in the united states. some of us are members of the aipac, some of us are part of the transpacific partnership. there is a new duration that is taking place in the americas which includes those that leave in a rules-based trading system. because we know that it is going nowhere. so if you look at what will build a new building blocks, it is the dtp on the one hand in what is now being negotiated with the european union on the other hand. these are the two big game changers bringing countries together that believe in that move and that system based on free and fair trade.

that is bringing corporations to economic growth and also the growing middle class and this is a tidal wave that is growing which is very important. people sort of vocalized a lot on this and i am a citizen of mexico and the click others say that mexico is more than just a brick in the wall. because i think that we have done some of these structural changes that others have not undergone. but i think there is a very interesting change occurring in the americas based upon trade

and peru, and colombia, it is happening and it is real. >> it is ironic that we spend so much time talking about china and asia when there's a lot of action going on in america. i don't think people realize what a wild success it really was. twenty years after it was passed on how successful it turned out to be in this initiative really has to do with the political agenda. >> yes, $1.2 billion a day of trade. it is essential. >> i want you to make a commitment right now, come away when we doing about this?

tell me what you will do about it? >> well, i mean it's absolutely true that when we looked out we have a trading partner that is imbalanced. it is potentially an enormous source of youth and labor and energy that our society will need in the future. you know, this is our future. we are lucky that we have a country like mexico and frankly we hear about our economy and how would absolutely collapsed. i mean, we could not function as a country without our guestworkers.

why we are playing on that subject is beyond me. [applause] >> okay, what is google doing with all these opportunities? >> our fastest growing region is latin america. and it is that because the internet and the growth of these new middle classes has agreed forward revenue support. these are people who really want the things in the united states. if you think about this, it is the fastest-growing subsegment and it's good politics to look south. >> okay, let's just move it towards the impact of the

culture. so i know that there are popular tv shows and new kind of television dramas that are growing and educating in a sense. the number one show is about the sons and daughters in mexico and everyone is kind of loving it because they have this rich family. do you think that this is playing a major role? >> yes, i think the creative industries have always played a role increasingly so. because of the platforms it is being put upon. one of the great unique advantages that we have is the

incredible power of our creative industries. i don't have to say what it means to the united states, but when you think of mexico, which is the largest provider of spanish speaking media content in the world. these industries provide not only a unique narrative of our countries and other parts of the world as to who we are and how we are and what we think, but also again, they are turning into huge economic engines in latin america. you boil down as this is taking place. so it is a layer cake with the hub of cultural innovation is playing a unique role in what i think is a system that is going back to the late middle ages and

the hamburgers of the world, you have in new york city and london and rio and shanghai and mexico city. it is creative industries to play unique role. only in terms of value systems, but in education as well. educating individuals and people as well. they become a presentation to other societies about what we do. >> one of the problems in this booming content is how you find the good stuff. you know, algorithms kind of commiserate with what you want, guide you to the the good stuff, but which are actually seeking out. but how do you find it?

>> i have to say that i am a pinch watcher of danish drama shows. but the only reason i know about this because there is a great french show and somebody told me about this. and that is the way that i find them. i suppose what i'm driving at is maybe editors get a little bit more important. because you need arbiters to tell you things. but how do we make sure that societies are not drowning in garbage? [laughter] >> a lot of people would view current television in this way to i think we went from three television channels to 50, up to 500, to 10,000, and if you

look at the current version of youtube, you will see that we have moved to a model where we suggest a set of channels that you might like based upon what we have been able to gather. >> but i keep being told that i would like more tears from eyes. >> i am drowning in bloody danish dramas. >> the speak the language. >> you need to uncheck that box. [applause] >> that is too high-tech for me. [laughter] >> these systems are not perfect and they tend to learn the preferences and so forth. based on your pattern and based on what other people have done, if you like these three and a whole bunch of other people like these three, netflix will suggest the fourth one to you.

that is a pretty good deal. we are very similar to people of the same background and same education. >> this is where i disagree. if you had said to me, you like doing these dramas, i think that serendipity can be programmed as well. [laughter] >> you want to take away my job now as well. [laughter] >> eure hopefulness when it comes to taking away people's jobs. >> there'll always be people who we needed to judge the quality. [laughter] >> what a relief.

>> you're always having these discussions. i mean, where do you come out? >> welcome i would like to say that google is probably employing some of the very brightest people in the world with algorithms. [laughter] >> to figure out how you come to the top of the list on the search. because it is not entirely clear how they do that. it is a little bit of magic in the little bit of serendipity. it is driven by some kind of a long-term profit maximization, i am sure. >> that is actually not too. [laughter] >> is actually not what we do. >> the thing is to quote donald

rumsfeld. it's not what you don't know, it's what you don't know that you don't know. so that is the problem with you. [laughter] >> at the end of the day the whole media entertainment business is all about this. so that is always a sense of unique content that people want to have access to. so distribution is just a must efforts to do a more efficient job of connecting people to what they want. winners, the guys that do that most efficiently and effectively >> would you feel about the unbundling of cable channels?

my concern about that is quality content is -- it is unbundled. no one is going to tune in, then you are collapsing. there is no availability. >> politicians have suggested that there is a bundling of this whole thing where you can have internet. which is really in control of the content and not just distributors. i think early technology and six is an allusion to that. increasingly people will have random-access debutant. they will actively by what they do and and the think we package

of things they don't want. so our society is way too competitive to allow this current anomaly to persist. that would be my guess. >> what i find very interesting is that they are going to leapfrog over faces that we didn't have. so we don't necessarily have laptops or computers. what will that do for innovation in content and innovation and technology? >> it turns out that building the traditional infrastructure is almost impossible as john mentioned. it just takes too long. people are skipping out to the 3-g and 4-g networks. if you look at most countries, even in the worst situations, in

somalia, which we studied, the only legitimate business includes this because the pirates need to talk to somebody. >> i wanted to comment about this creativity and the content that we discussed earlier. i sort of naïvely assumed that hollywood did not fully find all the calendar people. in other words, if we would just wire the internet, all of these incredibly creative people would just show up one day. there was evidence that that was true, but it looked like they do a remarkably good job of getting him in funding him. so we should expect what they

have accomplished. we are seeing next-generation and how they are producing for the internet. i would expect the same to occur in all of the countries. but it is so inexpensive to produce bespoke media and so forth, that the cost of access is lower and you can produce stuff that is more competitive. we are seeing this generational shift and that is important for the business models for all the companies as they try to figure out how to monetize this new content. it is more professional in many ways and have different access points and there's a lot of it goes back to the early questions of duration. >> i would like to very quickly get back to what is happening with some of the technology of the americas.

some of these platforms are being used not only to plug in people and connect them, but they are using these for those who have never had a culture in their lives. it is being used to provide the ability we are not only leapfrogging certain aspects, but it is being brought sped up because of the uses beyond just connecting are looking at the internet or calling somebody. >> it is remarkable what aptitude we have. this includes enormous amount

and it can now be created in this way and they have done terrible things to the actual offerings and those that are actually producing them. they have never felt poorer than they do right now because the magazines and publishing and so forth is going to get paid nothing like they used to. this includes that they can get paid and what they used to do in this kind of area. >> so how do you feel about that in terms of the danger. >> it is a very serious issue. >> it was subsidized by the other economics. >> the core issue was the

economics and it straightened out the economics and as john said over time, the internet will drive people and they won't necessarily want pieces as well as the bundle. and you will see that in many industries. the core problem is we have not been able to replace the modernization and we have been working hard on it. >> there actually three interesting success stories. one is the huffington post and another as politico. so those are models were a combination of clever editing and clever advertising and

graphics in certain special tactics have been involved. >> all these specialized magazines are doing extremely well, especially because you can hyperlink this deeper. so we are in this which is driven by consumer behavior and we have not fully replaced this. it is very disruptive without question. there are new choices and voices and it will continue in some fashion. >> we are nearing the end of our time with this vibrant discussion. i just wanted to ask each of our panelists about the single initiative for the partnership for the outrage that we would

like to see happen in terms of an idea about this region. what would you like to see happen in terms of expanding and exploring these great new vibrancy is out there? >> i would like to see everyone sign up for the cato institute. >> that is so scary. it's a scary idea. >> and evolved clinical system. [laughter] >> is little scary. >> which would harmonize the trading rules and the access and the ways in which it is consistent with what john was talking about earlier. and this includes the ambassador

of the better idea. overall these are friendly markets with compatible people we are stronger with economics they will affect us because the problems go on. >> and we need its neighbors to be just as stable as china. >> i think the standing that despite the attention that is being brought to bear on china and the huge market and

challenges and opportunities that the rise of america brings, there is a set of core values that defined the together. i was born in mexico and i now live in the united states. this is the future promise of the industry through the tpp and then expanding the trade agreement that will buy those countries that believe in that core set of values. because we knew it would derail the negotiations and delay mobility in mexico is laying mobility on the table and we

both knew that those things would torpedo everything. we have an ability to grow and to create a greater sense of community, which i think is a huge asset of the americas, especially when you have this perspective. >> i would love now to go seek the counsel of the audience.

>> please get a microphone. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] >> what is going to have to happen to privacy. that was the question. >> the specific answer is that it is important to be able to have an off button. that is the simplest answer to that. it is much more complicated. these tools and technologies

naturally aggregate data. that means that everyone knows exactly where you are it will initially be voluntary. >> another question. [inaudible question]

>> there extraordinary changes, especially with the melting of the polar ice cap. that has dulled so many threats affect wildlife and so forth. but from a canadian perspective, it is a new opportunity for opportunities and so forth. >> it's relevant because five of the diverse countries on the face of the earth are the americas. this is huge. it is aimed an issue issue of the nationstate and the caribbean. it would not be hard to imagine.

huge demographic displacements as a result of trying to change the americas and the migrating patterns that have nothing to do with the economy or whether a job can be had inside the borders, but could be linked to profound grammatic changes that have created everything from landslides to hurricanes and so we have to start thinking through some of these challenges throughout the americas. especially because of the huge natural biodiversity wealth that all of the nations have an especially that part of the most biodiverse countries are here in the united states. >> clearly we are undergoing climate change. the impact of health, expansion of vectors of disease from isolated areas, areas to

moderate areas. we are seeing that and the spreading of various plant infecting viruses and this is all something that is happening. our ability to slow it down or reverse it is certainly going to put pressure on mankind to adapt to it and deal with it. i just think that a lot of water

supply will disappear. it will put a deterioration on the quality of the soils of the world, which now have less than half of the organic matter. it really speaks to productivity in the agricultural sector going forward. there are lots of problems, folks. hopefully technology will provide answers to some of these problems. >> thank you. >> there we go. i am patricia. welcome to denver. i have a question. there is one woman with three men on the panel and i want to ask you a question. what do you think in terms of unleashing human potential in our world? >> i think we are on the cusp of

a tipping point that we have seen everywhere. i mean, we have seen the fruits of many things. the work that has been done has been far more influential than people understand. she has used that in every single trip that she is made to talk about and empower women to discuss this with everyone. we are seeing this now with many countries. i think that we are seeing a lot of incredible imagery coming out of africa and brazil and also how social media has really changed the game. and we have had such a blight. there is now a convenient pass light where there is a huge

outcry that brought people out into the streets. that would not have happened for others. many are vowing that this will not change. so i think that we are seeing something that is very exciting. a great growth area and it is so interesting to me that even today you feel that it is an issue. it is about economic issues, gdp issues, and i think actually the job of reframing the discussion is important. you know, you're actually unleashing the potential that is a great game changer internationally. so it is exciting.

i do not mind being the only woman appear as a result. >> are there any other questions? >> hello, i am fred taylor from denver, colorado. we have been talking about the technological revolution and you have talked about the best and the brightest in the people that you see all the time. what are american universities doing right to educate the next generation? >> 18 of the 20 top world research universit in are in america. it is fair to say that they are producing outstanding results at the elite level. the community college system needs a lot of work. it is underfunded. it provides tremendous needed educational services that are

ignored and undervalued and it is highly competitive and you know where you are. the real problem is k-12. >> we can have a whole afternoon in the session and i guess i would suggest that you should anticipate and that. unions, work rules, etc., all that is at this level. >> well, we have a program here in denver thank your governor and mayor. called the denver school of science and technology. which is a public and private

effort that is funded similarly to the rest of the public school education. it is particularly aimed at the intercity youth of denver. the results are nothing short of staggering in terms of the quality education that has been provided and the results in the graduation rates and we saw the other day that 92% of the kids that under the program are still in college a year after admission and about 80% of them, they are the first person in her family to go to a college. so the results are there. it's a doable and a solvable problem. most of these kids choose science or technology where they are actually able to find good employment after college.

>> to hammer the point way, we are talking about global competitiveness. i think that all of us would agree that free trade, especially within the americas is a huge improvement. the core issue that we will face globally is that the asian models are producing more technically trained adults. whether you like it or not, it is a fact that they are producing a very large number of scientists and engineers. that continues and we don't dress it come all the things you're talking about we ought to care about, they are going to start becoming over decades places where innovation occurs as opposed to here. that is a disaster. >> that is a good place to end. [laughter] cemented as a warning to take away what we heard today.

the biggest thing in the sense to take away is really what i think we mentioned, which is how much of this excitement is now coming from urban environments like the vibrant mixes and ethnic and business and having it all mixed up together. this is what we are going to be talking about one the next two days and i want to thank all of you for coming. and most of all i would like to thank our panelists for being so interesting. [applause] >> tonight on c-span's encore presentation of first ladies. >> one of our more controversial collections is the white house china. it was controversial at the time. it remains controversial to this day. because of the pattern of china. people at the time did not feel

like this was appropriate for formal china. some journalists had scathing articles about this. one said that the art was absurd. another article was written that said who will want to be eating a lovely meal and start to finish up and see a duck or a giant frog at the bottom of their play. people at the time just thought that this was not appropriate to have at a presidential dinner. but we felt this was a way to educate dignitaries from foreign countries who may be more familiar with this. >> the encore presentation of original our original series first ladies continues tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. during the program, join the conversation with the head of the presidential center. >> on the next "washington journal", north carolina's new

voter identification law and the supreme court decision. ..

in january 5th radio talk-show host and judicial activist mark levin. in-depth live the first sunday of every month at noon eastern on book tv on c-span2. ♪ >> this week on q&a, kristol writes editor and publisher of the internet bauxite conservative black check. >> why did you call your blog conservative black check cack. >> not a big story behind that.

i felt like it really illustrated what i was trying to convey and it also showed the why was. it is literal and find. it actually came into being because i was a reunion from my talking to a good friend of mine. she said, you should just do your own. okay. what do you think should college? out popped the words. conservative black chick. >> when did you do it? >> 2009. i started in 2009 when president obama got elected. i was very frustrated by his election early on because i felt as though he ran -- he was trying to run a little more of the moderate democrat. to pull in people in every state of virginia, turning blue. i said, this is interesting. i see what it does. n.j. area 2009 when it started

making appointments and i began to see the same basis i was becoming increasingly frustrated and really obamacare is what tipped me over the edge with unemployment where wise. i shook my head and said, why isn't as president focusing on job creation. people don't want what was close to universal health care right now. >> when did you become a conservative? >> i don't really know if it was a light bulb going off in my head. i do know that the way i was raised as a kid by my parents was always you grow up in life, take responsibility for your actions and you don't ever depend on somebody to do something for you. we sit around the dinner table at night and all have dinner as a family together. my parents never talked to us about politics, but the talk to us a lot about values and keeping promises.

i really became a conservative when i moved to washington in the mid to late -- mid-90s, 1995 and started working in television news and going out sitting in on hearings for abc news. at the time i was working for them. and remember walking up and down constitution and independence avenue seeing all these government buildings. what to these people do? and i just felt like the more i engaged the more conservative i became. i just felt like government was doing all what. so why was i pay all this money in taxes? >> when should government be involved with the rich person? >> government should be there for the indigent and the poor. i think men should be there as a framework for how we conduct business and really a structure for society. when you read the constitution, that's what the founding fathers really at mind.

i don't think government is there to necessarily popov assault. because then there would not be a safety net left for the people in life really needed. people who are disabled, people who fall on hard times and need a little help along the way. but i feel as though government now has grown so much beyond what our founding fathers wanted to be. by the people for the people. it is really a framework for how we live our life and conduct business. >> go back to that table used to sit around at home. where was it, and to set around it and what did your mom and dad do or what do they do? >> i grew up in richmond, virginia. the cable was the kitchen table. we all got home from school, my dad got home from work, mom was always cooking most of the time a good meal, i think. sometimes it was meat loaf and liver. but when we all sat down -- and

i remember watching walter cronkite and ted koppel at the time when they ran -- the iranian hostage crisis was going on. we talked about current events kamal we had done in school kamal was going on in our lives. allegis said around the table as a family. it was such a meaningful thing to me. really that such a strong impact on my life, even to this day as an adult. when i'm with my family will sit at home and talk about things going on. i think that is important. as a country somehow we have gotten away from that family time. i do think that makes a difference. families that eat together intend to stay in there. there kids do well. c-span: how many kids? >> three of us. two younger brothers. i was the only girl with two younger brothers. c-span: what is their politick?

>> i was a conservative. maybe not necessarily identifying as republican, but conservative living in not liberal state, washington state. don't know how they ended up out there. c-span: and mom and dad? >> my father is a dentist. he is been a practicing dentist for a gazillion years, probably 40. my mom was a schoolteacher. she taught kindergarten through second. it should get out of the work force and now goes in and out of it. she works of my dad's office making sure the bills are paid. c-span: i they still? >> over 40 years. almost 50 years. coming out. c-span: how often are you picked? conservative black checked balances out something else? >> i don't know if i am often picked as the balance. but i am picked typically to go

on panels and perhaps do newsprint rams because people consider me an anomaly. i don't really know wind. a lot of black conservatives. i tend to become a punching bag when i go on some television. i'm the punching bag for the liberal host of the liberal guest is my perception of it. c-span: how do you feel about that? >> i don't like it because i know that there are a lot of black republicans out there. people go back in history and do their homework, they realize that the republican party was the home to black americans up to probably the 60's. and it was really the republican party that did a lot to get them elected to office and make sure they vote in all sorts of great things, fought for civil rights. it frustrates me, and i don't like it. i get angry about it katie is a

video clip or you participated in the congressional black caucus' annual legislative conference. back in september of this year. let's watch a little bit of this. >> and going to push as both were just a little bit. when you look at the data that suggests that when these laws get implemented fewer black people vote, fewer black people have access to the polls, hal is that not on its face a rationalized set of laws and policies? >> i want to backtrack a little bit and then go over data that no one has mentioned. i grew up knowing that my parents sat at lunch counters. my mom tells me these stories. they resonate with me because they have made me the woman i am, the peerless woman to have a different opinion to sit here before you insert that i don't think martin luther king fahd for us to be in the year 2012 to

be told that blacks can't. c-span: are you fear this? >> yes. to my own detriment. c-span: give us an example. >> the fact that i speak out and write the things i write. a conservative black woman is an example. the tape he displayed as an example of my carelessness. the whale was raised. my mother always -- i get a little emotional because my parents are a big part of my life in hawaiian today. no matter what we ever wanted to pursue in life are always told, no matter what you can do it. and never let us quit. you know what, you make a commitment. you do it. follow through until the end.

when i hear these accusations, voter and the loss disproportionately affect minorities. it implies that somehow we have something missing in our brain. to me if white american can go through all the processes the follow the laws in the what are you telling black people? somehow they're not good enough? and that is what bothers me a lot about the rhetoric coming from democrats and the left. that we always have to make special -- there has to be a specialness when we deal with minorities because they're too feeble mind. we need to make concessions because they cannot follow the rules like everyone else. when you treat people like victim's i don't think they want to aspire. i think it's bad to teaching

people that kind of rhetoric. it's nothing to write home about or sing praises about when you have like one in six americans on food stamps right now. that is something that we should all not be so happy about. c-span: you also alluded in your comments about what your parents lived there back in their early years. can you give us more? being a dentist. >> my father was one of the very first photo go through the night guest post civil rights. he was one of the first to get admitted to the medical college of virginia in the dental school. the only black in his class. he dealt with discrimination from his professors when he was in dental school. he would help other classmates study and produce the same

marcuses white counterparts. he would get graded down. i hear stories from my parents talking about how their work all the n-word and all sorts of lovely things. amman talks about setting at lunch counters. she talks often about when she was a little girl, she had to go to the segregated beach. she could see where the line marked off, blacks and whites. she was on the black side. she could see the white kids and their families enjoying umbrellas and being able to where these great things. meanwhile, she did not have access to the same things. my mother tells me when she was going to ballet class, 13, she was probably -- she says it -- before rosa parks did that, i had my own encounter on the boss. i'm serious. she was going to valet glass.

she got on the bus, went to the back of the bus like she was supposed to. a white all the man got on and told her she needed to move she said, sir, and already in the back of the bus. word you want me to go. she sat there. the bus driver it did not make a move. i get a lot of my fairness for my mother. for richard. when i hear these stories, my mother myself. and i can't help -- it's all indigenes line the way i am. i think we should all want to give more and gays in the political process, not less. c-span: how did all of that affect your parents? how much did they talk about those days today? >> especially now since we have

the first black president of the united states that was elected which was very historic, my mother had tears in her eyes when barack obama became president in 2008. katie did she vote for him? >> yes, she did. c-span: how about that? >> i'm not sure. c-span: did they vote for him again? >> my father did not. i have not asked my mom. my mom and i have not followed up on her vote yet. c-span: did you vote for him originally? >> i did, actually. c-span: did you vote for him again? >> no, i did not. c-span: parse all of that. >> the first time i've probably even said hello i voted in 2009. it was historic for me knowing how my grandmother lived, my

uncle and my mom and my dad. it was restored to be able to in 2008 go into a voting booth and see a black man running on the ticket they have the option of voting for for president. moving, meaningful. it was great. i'm glad that we got past that barrier. i am troubled on the other side of that that the president in my opinion is not being judged and held to the same standards as his predecessors because i believe of his race. we have a coddling of his presidency by the mainstream media because is the first black president and is fearful of offending. that really troubles me. i think it's great that we crossed the rubicon as a country the people chose again and voted

to give him another four years. i don't think that was the ride towards. i know talking to my mother -- we talk a lot about politics. more now as a family because of the president and his policies and the fact that he is black. there's a lot going on there. i am not so sure if all of the black americans who voted for him a second time around really looked at his record. what he has a has not done for them. so it's complicated certainly, but i don't think from the the second time around it wasn't that complicated. i want to believe he would not cover in the way he did a first term. and it was a complicated vote. for me mccain and palin were not as strong of a ticket as i with like to see. i don't know if that answers your question.

c-span: i want to go back to your parents. what impact in their early upbringing have on them? >> i don't think that they carry with them as a badge. see my civil rights work. let me show it to you. my parents are going around saying, well was me. reckitt how much we had to overcome and fight to get to rear. a thing of their parents instilled in them the same values. my parents carry around -- we're going to bad times as children, that's a lot parents say if we could go through the crowd we had to go through, you can suffer these minor bumps in the road. you have fortitude, keep pressing forward. it's not to say that racism does not still exist and there is not still -- in many ways my parents are often telling me we feel

like the country is more divided now and a more subtle way than it was all we are sitting at lunch counters. c-span: let's go back to the congressional black caucus meeting. the exchange with al sharpton. >> going back to reverend sharpton is comments, last time i looked, the supreme court is the law of the land. and taxes and all these other states your been denied in florida take their case to the supreme court there will look at the indiana -- the supreme court will look at what was passed in 2008 by a majority of 6-3, i believe. they will say, that is president. and indiana had free voter i.d. >> the society on the indiana case, it was constitutional for them to establish id. it did not say that all of those states were subsequently doing that. let me finish. you miss reason was said.

the supreme court is the law of the land. >> but did not rule on it. >> but there will look to the indiana case. c-span: you was going to cut your mike off. >> i know it was. c-span: what does it feel like -- i don't even like that question. you are sitting there and people are prejudiced against you for being a black conservative. what is that light? what -- is it hard to be in a situation like that? >> yes. most of the attacks and vitriol that i did are coming from black people that look like me. it's not coming from -- people would think the -- counter that, people there did not look like me would be throwing these aspersions at me. situations like this when i am in a predominantly black liberal environment i get attacked

viciously. it does not feel great, but i'm not going to sit there and be somebody's punching bag in not set the record straight about the reality of voter i.d. laws. what was talking about was that when the supreme court ruled and upheld the indiana law, the laws that were passed among voter rolls went up for minority. up, not down. it debugs the argument that sharpton was trying to tell me that it disenfranchises practice and they can't get to the poll. the supreme court said, hey, on the indiana case, we don't think it's going to prevent minorities from voting. and other cases come before the supreme court it will certainly look at how they will then indiana. that was the point of us tried to make. c-span: a want to go back to one of your logs. in getting ready for the show are read the following. all the white man just don't cut

it anymore. i'm getting the message. and not -- and not reflective of the changing demographics of the country. america is browning out, not widening gap, as evidenced by the u.s. census findings that minorities will make up 54% of the population in 2015. what is wrong with the old white? >> there's nothing wrong with my guys. you're a nice guy. this is going to sound cliche, but i have a lot of white friends. but all kidding aside, the reason why as a problem is because mitt romney lost. he pretty much in my opinion ignored the minority votes. he gave lip service to the spin hispanics and latinos. it doesn't work like that. there was virtually no out region the president, while i don't agree, he filled the void. and the fact is, like i said,

romney won five percentage more points among white voters in mccain. almost 60%. and that still was not enough to carry into the white house. what we know is that next election those numbers will go down. if the republican party does not do something about fixing its image and really do something about bringing more people into this big tent that we claim we are all members of, we're not going to win elections. as my father said to me last week, we are probably going to be, you know, voted literally out of existence. the republican party. c-span: you're right, after receiving the presidential nomination he refused to run 24 century campaign. he stuck with an insular all white boys club approach to running his approach and strategy, and showed.

if he had a lot of black people around, everyone said that is funny. >> i think it mitt romney actually had black people around him and latinos and hispanics he quite possibly could have won. i know that there would have said it's phony. i think there would have said, while. let's get this guy. he gets it. c-span: what about the analysis but people saying if you do that . >> some people would argue it looks like he is pandering. at it as the biggest joke running. the big problem that i had with mitt romney, from inside the campaign to the people he was putting -- for the facebook campaign in was the same. mostly white males in some peppering with white females. that is not saying, hey, i am exclusive.

to his credit, mitt romney went to naacp in may his case to black americans. i thought this is great. one of the best speeches he gave , but he did not follow up with anything. that if you look in hindsight people say that's pandering because you don't follow it up. c-span: romney was an out of touch candid it and deserve 40 got. he deserved what he got but ultimately took supporters down with them. running against obama with the media stoning or the president in the background. how much do you think the media's bones? can you give us an example? >> the situation going on with benghazi, the attack on the consulate. if this had been george bush and you had a republican, there would not have -- candy crowley, the way she answered herself to jump to the president's defense in that third debate or second debate was so inappropriate.

it went beyond the pale. and i really don't believe that if that was a republican incumbent she would have jumped in like that. going back to the 2008 campaign the president's relationship with the rev. jeremiah right, is rare print for 20 years, obama belonged to is church. he had incendiaries sermons that he gave. he baptizes children, married -- de presided over the marriage between president obama and michele. and that really got scant attention by the mainstream media. these were all full sermons that he gave saying that basically americans deserve what they have i won't repeat a lot of the awful things that the reference said. but also really the president's failed record in his first term. the media did not hold the

president accountable. when the president said, if i can't get the job done in four years i should be a one-term president. if he said that, why haven't we been hearing -- why did we hear that on the campaign trail? why isn't it no one at the white house and the press corps stood up to this president and said, mr. president, you yourself said if you could not get employment down, if you could not solve the economic problems. why isn't anyone calling him on his failed promises? c-span: what do you say, either white or black liberals listening saying, crystal wright has all the talking points. why do you feel this way and 95 percent of the black people feel the other way? >> i don't have any talking points because a lot of things have not even necessarily been in lockstep with the republican party.

i do think i am one of the few black conservatives out there actually talking about how the president's race is playing into how the middle -- liberal media is not holding them accountable. so -- c-span: why aren't they? >> i don't think the liberal press -- i think there's warning of the president because he is the first, the first black man, the first black person to take office. i really believe that, and i also believe they have a love affair with president obama, almost as though he is celebrity like. this man in my opinion can do no wrong. the liberal press will continue to prop him up and prop him up until the bitter end. i almost wonder what president of ball would have to do that would be so egregious for the liberal media to turn on him. i find it really strains that the route the presidential

campaign all the questions were directed to mitt romney. well, he had an economic plan. he talked about it at martian. he talked about reforming taxes amount raining in entitlement spending. but to me the media did not do and equal job. mr. president, what is your plan for a second term? was he ever ask that? he really wasn't. and i think it is outrageous because those questions were asked of all his predecessors. reagan, bush. every incumbent, clinton actually had a record to run. they grilled him on his other personal scandals. c-span: let's go back because you bring about the things in this clip. >> why is it that in 1960 we had

36 percent of black males who were incarcerated in 1960. i was rereading the moynihan report. the deceased daniel patrick moynihan wrote for president johnson about the state of black america as he signed in 1964. then i thought about today where we have 55 percent of blacks in prison. in of the back of the report and saw that at the time in 1964 when he wrote this report to give it to president johnson, he said, the biggest thing that he saw, the crisis affecting black americans was the breakdown of the black family. c-span: two issues. 55 percent of black males are in prison? >> it is high. it is quite an enormous amount. i think it is about 55%.

c-span: why? i have heard folks who don't think like you say their reason is because the laws are written against the black folks and the trucks and the -- >> the sentencing guidelines. you know, shelby steele, a great professor at stanford and also a great published author writes a lot about this you know, it's not the sentencing guidelines, the reasons why you have a disproportionate number. it's not. it's because we have had -- in a talk about daniel patrick moynihan's report, the moynihan repo